#anti hazel reinhart

[kitkatopinions]

I know I’ve posted this meme format before, but I made it anti Hazel.

[kitkatopinions]

In your opinion, what’s the worst line of dialogue in the show so far? Because some of it has been pretty bad and not even like in the sense that they’re cringey jokes, but like some actual, serious, meant to be epic lines are just not great and it can really ruin the immersion

Okay, there are some really out there ones, so I can't pick an absolute worst.

"All I do is tell jokes and hit stuff." Idk why the authors made a character recite meta reasons explaining that the writers had only been using her as comic relief and an extra fighter for almost the whole show, in a very non-organic way, so that someone could tell her that's not all there is to her character. Nora realizing her character has been neglected and getting upset that there isn't more to it did not a compelling character make, it just made me go "If you're aware you did it, make her have an arc that isn't about Ren, don't just make her pass out for several episodes!"

"We've been in bad situations before, and we didn't need an adult to come save us or tell us what to do!" Honestly, that whole speech is horrible and made it hard to think of Ruby as... Not an arrogant, naïve, ungrateful kid. Imagine telling the guy who literally stopped you from being kidnapped by a crazy murderer and stopped that crazy murderer from killing your friends in front of you that you don't need any adults! Honestly, what has Ruby done WITHOUT adults? And how are you going to write your main protagonist to tell her mentor/uncle that was doing the work in Haven, that's responsible for them getting to Haven, that saved her and JNR from Tyrian, that's the only reason she knows about Oz, the Inner Circle, Salem, to go to Haven in the freaking first place, HER OWN DANG EYE POWER...Like, how could the writers think of it as a good thing for Ruby to suddenly dismiss Qrow, say they didn't need adults to save them or tell them what to do, and then tell him to essentially comply with whatever she wants or get out - because when he said they shouldn't unnecessarily steal a plane to get across the Atlas border, her friends made sad faces. I cannot express how much I hated this whole scene.

"No more Gretchens." I've talked about how much I hate Hazel, right? I cannot and will not understand how they speedran a half-hearted redemption arc, primarily fueled by the incredible hypocrisy of his everything that never got called out, and then acted like Ozpin had some big lesson to learn about trusting the guy beating him on the orders of abusive ex wife while he's in the body of a kid, and how he never should've allowed a young girl to make the choice to learn how to kill monsters - while Ruby is outside throwing fits whenever any mean adult tells her she can't do whatever she wants whenever she wants. I will personally yeet Hazel into the fricking sky if I have to see him or hear about him again in this show.

"I just remember you being more of the quiet one." WEISS, WHEN? Blake was categorized in the first three seasons as feisty, she was stubborn and specifically called out Weiss, arguing and fighting with her for a full day and yelling at her to her face, calling her a selfish brat. She gave impassioned speeches and was always itching to enter the fight. Also, Weiss hadn't seen Blake do anything other than fight! What's new about that? What's 'not quiet' or 'out of Blake's character' about that? THEY KNEW EACH OTHER IN A COMBAT SCHOOL! Yes, Blake didn't trust or open up easily, but that doesn't mean Weiss should think that Blake helping in a fight is proof of some big change of character. This line made no sense at all.

Ironwood: "You've done the right thing." Emerald: "I have. Feels weird." @why-i-hate-rwby-now made a post about this line being really out of place and bad. But Emerald's everything was so badly done and her lines post leaving Salem were not super great generally, so yeah.

I don't know, I'm sure there's way more, but these are the ones that I had right in the front of my mind.

[kitkatopinions]

Out of curiositu. What's wrong with Port, robyn and hazel? I do know that you hate coco because of her relation to nazism and you don't like her character overall but what is with remainning three?

I have some silly/not very valid reasons to dislike the characters, but some reasons that I think are pretty valid.

Lots of anti-Port, anti-Robyn, and anti-Hazel under the keep reading.

Peter Port His design looks dumb to me. His moustache is even worse than Jacques' and Watts' moustaches, his outfit is lame, and his weapon is even worse. His Chibi appearances? Never funny once. His voice acting? Cringe. Out of all three of the men written by toxic-masculine men to laugh their heads off at having ‘tricked a man who didn’t know any better into wearing something traditionally feminine - and therefore seen by them as embarrassing - so everyone could laugh at him for doing something that wasn’t gender conforming,’ Port is the only one who never got much depth to his character, and therefore this is harder for me to just headcanon out of here. The dude literally like, leered at Yang when she was underage? Like he was like "Huntsman" and then he makes a face and like, lowers his voice and looks at Yang and is like "HUnTrEssEssss" and then clicked his tongue in that flirty way, and Yang looked visibly uncomfortable and annoyed and gave a forced and very awkward chuckle (I’ve been there.) And I've heard people be like "no, he wasn't flirting, he was just teasing, see Yang laughed." But that's purposefully pretending to not get it. If any man talked to any woman he didn't know like that, I'd consider him mega creepy and gross, let alone a man older than Yang's father, when she was either sixteen or seventeen, doing it in class!

Robyn Hill I also hate her design. I don't know what's up with her hair. Kudos to the writers for designing a woman that doesn't look like a teenager, but there is too much going on with her outfit, I hate it, and also it's so dull. She ate up tons of screen time with Qrow, whatever friendship they had felt forced, and for someone who really had been looking forward to seeing Qrow interact with other characters he already had some level of connection with like Ironwood and Winter, this was personally annoying. Like Clover, she annoyed me because I was waiting for things I cared about and instead got them. XD Robyn was a somewhat late addition, originally her role was as a cheesy mayor (literally they called her "Mayor McCheese") and later on they made her role bigger and different. I think it's easy to tell that she was a late addition, her character doesn't seem super fleshed out, and she doesn't have a very good role imo probably because it was thrown together. The role that she does have in volume seven wound up being centered around opposing people. Since I was a fan of Ironwood and he was one of the people she opposed, this made me biased from the start the same way that when Ironwood first came in during volume two, I was biased against him for going against Ozpin. However, Ironwood wound up not really working against Ozpin, never did anything worse than informed the Council of events and being assigned as the head of security for an event, and wound up openly trusted by the Inner Circle by the end of his second season. Robyn never wound up able to co-exist with James. Her role in volume 8 was literally just playing support to Qrow, who got benched the whole season as it was. She started the whole plane fight despite Clover and Qrow both being willing to talk about solutions and figure things out. Robyn seems very hotheaded and rash, which alone doesn't make for a bad character, but in a story where I'm already wishing that less people relied on anger and impulse and would actually talk things out and compromise, she's just all that more frustrating. Yang and Blake trust her for no real reason, just because the writers wanted people in Team RWBY to ‘display trust,’ but they were also writing for all of them to continually lie to and show mistrust to James already. On top of that, we as an audience never see Robyn do anything with the supplies that she steals. I could talk more about this point in another post, but not seeing anything done with these supplies makes her efforts look ineffective and unnecessary, and it makes it all the more frustrating that the same people who act accusatory to Ironwood at the end of volume seven because Amity isn’t finished yet have absolutely zero problem with the person who was causing the delay. Robyn has the problem of only being a character during the height of my frustrations with the series. She acts as a mouthpiece for whatever the writers want the audience to think, she carries the hivemind group think of most of the 'good' mains, she tells us how terrible Clover actually was and how much better Qrow is after Clover's death despite the fact that she doesn't know the guy and was arguably partially responsible for his death by starting the whole plane fight... A lot of characters are the same way. But they have the benefit of having existed outside of the Atlas arc. Ruby was arguably three times as frustrating in the last two seasons than Robyn was, but I remember when I liked her. With Robyn, all I have is some of the most frustrating and worst written moments in the history of the show. This is the big one for me - She called Marrow Wags. She doesn't know him. She threw his status as a Faunus and her doing the bare minimum of not being Jacques Schnee in his face and then called him Wags. If the writers hadn't ever dipped their toes in their dreadfully done fake-Racism story, this wouldn't be a problem. But it is, and it seems wildly inappropriate and insensitive for her to nickname a Faunus by their Faunus trait, especially one she doesn't know. It was horrible and clearly offensive when Roman Torchwick called Blake 'Kitty,' but we're supposed to be one hundred percent on board with and never blink our eyes at a politician running a "I'm not that bad guy" campaign that calls Faunus offensive nicknames? Yeah, no thanks.

Hazel Reinhart Again, his design is lame, but especially his volume eight look. I don't know who thought it looked good, but it haunts me. It's so badly done. His dialogue also often feels forced, which is a complaint I have for other mostly villains like Cinder and Adam. The man literally beats children, and then his wiki page says he has a soft spot for kids lol. Not only does he beat children, but both times he started trying to beat up on Oscar, he was also ranting about how it was Ozpin's fault, blaming Ozpin for his actions like Ozpin was puppeteering his actions and he just couldn't help himself. It's ridiculously that no one ever was like "Hey maybe stop with the 'why are you hitting yourself' routine and stop victim blaming Ozpin for your issues?" He likely was hunting down and murdering hunters in Mistral. Many of them were Qrow's friends and he looked so sad! This guy literally said "My sister made a choice and the person who 'let her' do it is going to get all my anger forever, instead of the person who makes Grimm for fun." He literally said "I'm going to say he deserves torture because my sister wanted to help people and then died doing an incredibly dangerous job and I need someone to blame." I can understand that he was grieving, but again, there was so much misguided blame. And this wouldn't be as big of a deal if not for... The narrative of the show painted Hazel as at least partially right. His badly done death-equals-redemption, rushed and stupid turn to the light side was accompanied by the "no more Gretchens" line and the fact that Hazel's view of Ozpin never really was challenged. The way the story went basically implied that Hazel was right and that Ozpin really was responsible for the death of his sister, and had to be careful in the future not to let anyone else die... As if the entire series isn't centered around young fifteen-to-nineteen year olds fighting a war and insisting they’re ready and the narrative all but saying everyone has to not only let them do whatever they want, but that they aren't good people if they don't help them do it.

Sooo... Yeah. XD That’s why I hate them. There are other people I absolutely hate too, including Cinder, Jacques, the gods, Salem, and Junior, but they’re all people I feel like I was already supposed to hate. Granted, I hate some of them for reasons I don’t think I was supposed to, but I was still meant to hate them. For characters like Robyn, Hazel, Port, and Coco, I was actually supposed to like them at least by the end of their time so far, and instead I wish they’d never existed.

[kitkatopinions]

You know what’s interesting? The people who talk about the ‘toxic masculinity of Ironwood’ as like a reason why people should hate him, or a way to suggest that Ironwood fans are themselves bogged down by toxic masculinity and like Ironwood because of toxic masculinity... And then they’re like “Hazel’s redemption was great, we like Hazel, why are you guys upset about Ironwood’s character when you can like Hazel?”

Hazel is like... First of all, I do hate him and he is terrible, but Hazel is way closer to the ‘toxic masculinity’ that people claim Ironwood embodies.

He’s quiet sometimes, but only in this strong intimidating sort of way. He literally was angry that his sister decided to do something against his wishes and then blamed a man for letting her do it. He literally rips off some his clothes to hurt himself into being more powerful. His hurt over a significant loss really only comes to the forefront in the form of violence and anger. Do you guys remember when he got mad at Lionheart and held him above the ground in a threatening manner despite him being on the same team because he was ‘letting a boy make a fool of him?’ He literally doesn’t even fight with a weapon because he relies on raw strength. He’s ‘protective’ of Emerald because she’s a young girl who might remind him of his sister. We find out that he only started working for Salem after she proved that nothing he did would kill her and that she was stronger than him. And ‘bowing to Sienna Kahn’ was as close as he gets to showing any sort of respect towards a woman he didn’t try to murder repeatedly, and he doesn’t respect her enough to stop Adam from literally murdering her and is only vaguely tired about it. Throughout his entire run on the show, Hazel is pretty dang toxically masculine. Meanwhile, any of Ironwood’s ‘toxic masculinity’ was either in the form of very small things that other main characters do too like flirting with women or being a kind of stubborn character... Also he acts stern and put together sometimes. Until the eighth season, where ninety percent of Ironwood fans think he’s really out of character! Also he bowed to Weiss too, so if that’s considered ‘proof’ of Hazel not being toxically masculine despite his entire motivation being built around thinking his sister couldn’t make choices and take risks and blaming a man for what happened to her when she did, than Ironwood is safe too.

Speaking only for me, the moments that I liked Ironwood best were the moments when he was being more open, tender, or vulnerable. His talk with Glynda in volume two (iirc,) his refusal to fight Qrow in volume three, his care towards Weiss in volume four, his little laugh when Ruby admits to stealing the plane, so on and so forth. What I liked best about Ironwood is his capabilities to be soft even in tense moments. When everything good started being stripped away from his character seemingly in an attempt to stop people from liking him or thinking he might’ve been in the right, that’s when he starts doing things like taking control of Penny’s body and things like that, and even then he still cries when he fights Winter and is still way more justified in anything he does than Hazel ever did. One of the reasons I hated Hazel so much is because I truly don’t think he has much to him outside of his hypocrisy and anger issues. His connections to people are only explored on a shallow surface level and his ‘justification’ is so flimsy while he’s one of the least fun or interesting villains in the whole show.

So yeah, all that to say, I continue to hate Hazel and love Ironwood.

[kitkatopinions]

[kitkatopinions]

So let me get this straight: Hazel after killing all the huntsmen in Mistral and brutalising Oscar for most of v8 (and people dont come with "Ozpin took most of it" its still Oscars body???? Hello????) gets an redemption via death but Ironwood who we know since v2 and was always an ally and a really cool character till v8 dies as a iredemable villain???? How? Why? Its just so dumb... love you blog btw

You know, this reminds me of seeing posts that were like ‘RWDE posters are mad about Ironwood not getting redeemed and yet they don’t like Hazel or Emerald being redeemed???’ And just... Yes, Kathy, the two are incredibly different.

Ironwood has been a hero for seasons who has displayed flaws and made mistakes but was not ever treated as a possible future villain by the narrative, and he was treated as pure evil before he tried to do anything more evil than ‘saving the people he can since he can’t save everyone,’ but then started getting pushed into the maniacal heartless abuser villain role at lightspeed within one season + one episode of the show and (I cannot stress this enough) two or three days of in show time. Our main characters treated him like a monster without knowing about the more villainous actions for the better part of the season, without any of them wondering if there was some mistake, no sympathy given to the fact that Ironwood had his back against the wall or was suffering from mental strain or a horrible injury, no recognition of anything that the mains did badly that maybe contributed to the situation they were in. His ‘fall to villainy’ was outlandish, over the top, out of character, and lacking in any real emotional depth, they blamed him for all of Mantle’s problems despite him having done his very best to ‘go for both’ and Jacques Schnee and Watts being the actual ones responsible for the state of Mantle - as well as huge systemic issues that Jacques was purposefully trying to preserve. He then was (most likely) killed off by the writers who then laugh at how it was ‘always planned’ while no single person in the group of protagonists gives a care.

And on the flipside, you have Emerald and Hazel! Both of them spent seasons being three times worse than James at his worst (seriously, he at least had good intentions.) Emerald and Ironwood’s direct kill count is the same (one,) and Emerald contributed to the deaths of hundreds more at the Fall of Beacon, knowing what it would lead to, and only gives small, rare indications that she feels remorse for it (it’s almost sad.) And Hazel is hinted at being responsible for many of the deaths in Haven and spent his time blaming Ozpin for the fact he was actively trying to murder children. Both of them continued their villainy right up until the very season they got redeemed as they both continued working with Salem to bring down yet another kingdom and while Hazel was beating a fifteen year old, Emerald was eagerly volunteering to help Cinder try and murder Penny yet again. And then when it was revealed that Salem wanted to destroy everything including them, they turned out of self preservation without apologizing for their terrible, harmful, murderous actions. And then the narrative acts like Hazel was some martyr who taught Oscar a valuable lesson about not letting anyone else die and isn’t it sad he died before he could do the bare minimum to earn any sort of redemption. And Emerald winds up having friendly laughs and getting endearingly teased by the people she’s arguably hurt the most, with the girl she’d murdered right there laughing with them. And now she can get away with now being part of the group without any indication she’s changed, no apology, anyone that protests her involvement being scolded for their lack of trust...

One of these things is an incredibly badly handled hero-to-villain story, where they failed to get the beats of emotional depth for a fallen hero arc and rushed it instead without care, leaving it feeling out of character and out of the blue despite the small bit of groundwork that they had in place for the narrative.

The other two are incredibly badly handled villain-to-hero stories, where they failed to get the beats of emotional depth for good redemption arcs and rushed them instead without care, leaving them feeling very insincere and out of the blue despite the small bit of groundwork that they had in place for the narratives (mostly on Emerald’s side, Hazel gave less indication.) 

Also we weren’t playing Yankee Swap, we didn’t trade in James as a hero for Emerald or Hazel, we just had three characters who were all handled badly.

But yeah, it’s really weird that the same volume where the writers were trying to force us to sympathize with Hazel was also trying to force Ironwood into an irredeemable category. The thing is, if I didn’t know about James’ never-mentioned-in-show semblance, I’d not be down for a post volume 8 redemption because I think trying to kill children and actively wanting to torture people as a full grown adult is kind of hard to get redeemed from. But Hazel did that, Hazel is just as if not MUCH MORE evil than Ironwood, so why on earth did the series treat Hazel as redeemable and kind of right and just needing a hand of mercy extended to him? Why was James ‘keep soldiers off the battlefield, turn my gun around because I don’t want to hurt Qrow even though I think he’s trying to murder me, look away from the Grimm while I shoot it’ Ironwood treated as the 100% deserving of pain and death and treated as totally irredeemable villain no one could sympathize with?

When you factor in his semblance it really just makes even less sense. I literally cannot comprehend why the RWBY writers do what they do. Also, thank you so much for the compliment on my bog! Sorry to kind of rant there haha. XD 

[kitkatopinions]

asjfhehf Hazel is a fucking joke. XD I love the RWBY wiki so much sometimes. “Hazel attempted to brutally murder and torture an at the time barely legal probably eighteen year old teenager for the crime of trying to defend the fourteen-fifteen year old he was also brutally trying to murder... Hazel was known to have a soft spot for children.”

[kitkatopinions]

It’s Father’s day, so I wanted to post about the dads (or people with Dad energy) in RWBY

Number One: Taiyang Xiao Long

Tai makes a lot of mistakes and has a lot of flaws, but he is trying. Tai has good relationships with both of his daughters and Yang clearly takes after him quite a bit. I headcanon him as way more involved in Ruby and Yang’s lives than he appears in the show and I also totally headcanon that despite being Qrow’s age, Tai took on a parental role with him and has since their teen years.

Number Two: Qrow Branwen

Yes, Qrow has a lot wrong with him and his character has severely gone off the deep end since the episode Lost Fable, but V4-V5 and even the start of V6 Qrow had some serious disaster parent energy and was primed to be a father figure to the whole gang. I loved Qrow so much and wrote tons of non-published stuff featuring dad Qrow stepping in for Oscar, Blake, Weiss, and Sun specifically, but I also have headcanoned him as a flighty, but very important, full on second dad for Yang and Ruby, having partially raised them and always carrying around pictures of them in his wallet on long trips.

Number Three: Pietro Polendina

Confession I’ve made before, I don’t typically write with Pietro, as my writing partner and I came up with a different OC dad for Penny before volume 7 came out (and totally missed the shot of Pietro watching Penny die.) So my feelings towards Pietro are much more ‘meh’ than my feelings towards anyone else on this list. But, flawed? Yes. Kind of problematic beginnings in his fatherhood? Yes. Good dad who loves his daughter? Sure, yeah. Pietro makes the list.

Number Four: Ozma

Baby boy... This one hurts because Ozma didn’t get the chance to be a father for very long in this second life. No one can convince me that Ozpin wasn’t a good dad. He tried his best to get his kids out of a bad situation and I can’t believe what he was put through. <3 <3

Number Five: James Ironwood

Listen, I don’t care what the end of RWBY volume seven and all of RWBY volume eight did to this amazing character, but people will have to pry Father Figure James Ironwood from my cold, dead hands. James co-parents Penny with her dad, and co-parents all of Qrow’s kids with him, without him or Qrow realizing that they’re co-parenting. And this extends to Whitley too, obviously. Also I like ‘James is considered a parental/mentor figure by many Atlas students including Neon, Flynt, and Ciel.’

Number Six:

Okay, yeah, I hear you, he’s evil and he attacks children. But I’m biased for Torchwick and I love him so much. And dysfunctional, complicated bad guys can have dysfunctional, somewhat toxic parent/kid dynamics, and I always imagine that if Roman had switched sides and somehow managed to drag Emerald and Mercury along with him, they’d start looking to him as a parental figure and he’d get reluctantly attached to them. Also, I totally see him as having been a father/older brother figure to Neo. Also also, I worked hard to make a redemption believable for him in a non-published AU once, so I can put him on my list. XD

[kitkatopinions]

With Hazel it's weird because on one end, I want to say "well he's a villain, you're supposed to hate him, him being a hypocrite makes him more compelling as an antagonist too"

But on the other hand the incredibly rushed "redemption" just to kill the character off in record time just sours it all.

Why didn't he ever fight Yang?

That's the thing, I'm fine with a villain I'm just supposed to hate. Although obviously I prefer fun or more involved villains, I don't have a problem with villains you're meant to hate. I absolutely hate Hazel and that isn't a problem if he had continued on as a villain, or had just died. But instead he gets big moments and his death was clearly supposed to mean something significant to the audience, and they acted like he had taught this big, good lesson to Ozpin and Oscar.

With such a rushed redemption that happened without even addressing his hypocrisy and his warped views... It's just badly done imo, and to be honest with you, I literally don't know why they even did it. It's full on confusing. Emerald could have just been the only one getting Oscar out and asking Jinn to confirm things (maybe to prove it to Mercury.) Hazel could straight up die trying to keep them in, because really, what does he contribute?

I also want to point out that hating a character who is meant to be hated is good, but part of the reason I hated him was because I thought he was boring, which isn't exactly a good thing.

And yeah, he should've fought with Yang!

[kitkatopinions]

Tbh, in regards to Hazel I'm just upset they axed him so quickly. It's honestly to the point where part of me thinks he's not actually dead and they'll have a "big reveal" later, but you never know with RT. Feels like they could have done a lot more with the character.

Heck, I know this isn't surprising coming from me, but do you know who he could have been a great villain for? Yang. From themes, to character, to even the potential fight, it could have been great. Maybe when I wake up I'll make a whole post about that.

You're right, in his first couple scenes, he seemed like maybe he'd be a refreshing change of pace. Villains that have boundaries and morals are good, villains that seem normal at first glance are also interesting. Hazel didn't seem to fit much with the other villains in Salem's circle and he clearly had something to do with Ozpin, who - when V4 dropped - was one giant mystery.

But he was absolutely wrecked in the Haven fight, and then it just kept going. Like, oh, okay, he doesn't want to avoid violence, he isn't above hurting children, he doesn't have these boundaries, his connection to Ozpin is frankly stupid, none of our heroes but Oz and Oscar even seemed to learn his name, his stupid motivations never got properly addressed as the hypocritical garbage it was, he was tabled for most of V6 and all of V7, and then he returned only to dig even further down into being hypocritical, moral-free garbage... And then he 'turned good' because he saw that the lamp worked, and then he just died. No real exploration of his supposedly important relationship with Emerald, his 'change of heart' was totally unbelievable and the 'life lessons' he left Oz with felt totally pointless and shallow, shoved into the narrative, and just as hypocritical as Hazel has been since the Haven fight, and on top of that... Seriously, do our mains know him as anything other than 'the one guy who kept screaming 'Ozpin' at Haven who electrocuted Nora?

Honestly, I don't even mind some of the ideas of his character. The massive hypocrisy and deluding himself into thinking things that aren't true, is a good villain trait. But because the writers tried to portray him as right without actually... Making him right, the whole thing just turned out incredibly frustrating. Him being calm and softer spoken, but still kind of intimidating, and then switching to blowing up, screaming, and willing to hurt anyone and everyone because he doesn't actually have any emotional control, that's a great villain trait, except that the Haven fight was full on comical, and anything actually scary about that behavior wasn't there. (I can't stop laughing about the scene in the Haven fight, where Hazel starts like, ripping off his jacket, and the whole fight around them stops and Qrow's like o.O like he's just thinking "sir, please keep your clothes on?" The pacing was just so horrible XD)

You're right that he could've been a good villain for Yang, especially V5 Yang who was already questioning some of her stances and beliefs, but also starting to learn how to regulate her temper and be less impulsive. Hazel could represent both of those struggles at once. Honestly, Yang's relationship with Ozpin is something I wish they'd focused on more. And that's true of all the main four, but idk, I think since Yang was the one literally being told by Raven to doubt him, I just think that should've been explored properly (and with less author hatred towards Ozpin.) And Hazel really could have continued on that story. Plus, his 'switch on a dime' massive temper and short sightedness because of it is literally something Yang works in volume five to try and fix in herself. I know we already have a bit of 'this is what I could've been' in Raven, but I feel like the importance in Yang's dynamic with Raven isn't actually about Yang comparing herself to Raven, and is more about Yang realizing she never needed and doesn't want Raven, partially because Yang is different than Raven and values other things. Hazel is a man who turned into a resentful, cruel, violent, anger driven person after the loss of a family member that he loved, specifically a younger sister who wanted to be a hero, and audiences can see clear parallels between who Hazel is and who Yang could be if she lets herself. Hazel lashed out and turned against Oz and humanity itself not out of cowardice or selfishness, which were things Yang (up to V5) didn't really suffer from more than most. Instead, Hazel did so out of grief, anger, reckless abandon, mistrust - which are all themes in Yang's story. It could've been good and meaningful to see Yang confronted with these things more and then rise above them and be better. I mean, I do this quite a lot though lol, where I'm like "they missed an opportunity with Yang and almost any other character." XD But this is mostly because so many villains feel so disconnected from the mains, but Yang was my favorite of the four girls, so I guess I gravitate to her relationships more than most of the mains (though I'll forever be upset that Blake wasn't allowed to sympathize with and be understanding towards Ozpin.)

Hazel is a wasted opportunity, but what we got in canon was so frustrating and badly done.

[kitkatopinions]

People are just accepting Hazel’s redemption just because he didn’t want Salem to destroy the entire world, saying “uwu look, he doesn’t want children to die” like... Funny, because he sure wanted them to die when he was trying to murder Oscar in Haven, he sure wanted them to die when he’d already been involved with Salem during the Fall of Beacon. Like, what did he imagine her goal is, sending countless Grimm to constantly destroy everything? Of course it wasn’t just about ending the Huntsman Academies when he’s known that she’s the one controlling the monsters the Academies need to fight, and she’s actively constantly using said monsters to attack literally everyone - Uh-huh, that includes children. Hazel is a garbage person and a massive hypocrite. He let the Fall of Beacon happen, he didn’t have any problem with fighting to kill in Haven, he beat up Oscar on screen not that long ago. I honestly hate hate hate his ‘no more Gretchens’ line, because it’s absolutely unearned and meaningless!

Emerald still needs to be faced with the consequences her actions, own up to how horrible and harmful they were, be shown to actually regret them in more than an ‘it’s almost sad’ casual way, and actually grow as a person moving forward if CRWBY wants me to accept her as a redemption story. But Hazel is different. Hazel is a full adult, who wasn’t a hungry homeless person, he wasn’t emotionally and physically abused from his teen years, and he hasn’t been involved in this for no more than two or three years some of which he spent as a teenager. I’m sorry, the standards for Hazel are higher. He didn’t get redeemed, he just did something good for confusing reasons one time. Hazel’s character in my opinion is an example of CRWBY’s sloppiness. His motivation never had to make sense because they knew they could get some cool shots out of him, then have him confusingly do one good thing, say a couple of lines that sound like they mean something, and then possibly probably die, and all the RWBY mega fans would go on about how emotional it is and how Oscar learned something and this is proof that RWBY is about trust and love.

By the way, I know I’m emotion posting again, but I really, really hate Hazel and this was such a poorly done ‘redemption,’ and I just can’t.

[kitkatopinions]

There is literally nothing about Hazel Reinhart that is not disturbing. Seriously, I can’t think of one thing about him that doesn’t at least give me cause for concern. I hate him so much.

[kitkatopinions]

The best thing about Hazel is also the worst thing: his character design. (Original and Atlas, respectively.) Seriously, what the actual hell was that makeover.

I completely agree with you about his second outfit, it's the worst outfit change to come out of the V7-V8 wardrobe changes. It's just... I don't even know how to explain how bad I think it looks.

But I don't know about his first character design. It's cool that he was a different body type than we'd seen in RWBY before, for sure. Even though we'd seen muscled men like James, he still is a different body type, burlier, more broad shouldered, etc. But at the same time, his outfit is really... Dull.

I mean, it's giving me Earth Kingdom, it's giving me fade into the background, it's giving me a little 'riches to rags' in a way. And I guess some of that is appealing, but it's nothing that stands out in Mistral from the crowd. This might be the point of his design, in which case, they achieved their goal, but it still doesn't make me think his design is the best thing about him, especially when his hair and beard are also just very basic, nothing iconic or standout. I will say though, the way his coat sleeves switch to black, and you see a bit of scarring under that, to me looks more like his sleeves are cutting off the circulation to his arms and that's just a little funny. Still, it's not a bad design despite the lack of color. It's probably even good, it's just not interesting to me. But it is one thing about Hazel that isn't at least a little disturbing! So, I stand corrected, everything about Hazel except for his first character design is disturbing.

But yeah, his season eight design makes me wish he'd fallen off a cliff right after his first encounter with Oscar and disappeared from the show forever. I mean, I guess I already wanted that, so I can't blame his season eight design, but it definitely didn't help.