#canoncrit james ironwood

[kitkatopinions]

Ooh! New ask game!

Ironwood, obviously. And Qrow too.

Alrighty, these are my boys!

Let's do Ironwood first for the new ask game

1: sexuality headcanon

I headcanon Ironwood to be bisexual with a preference for men.

2: otp

Ironqrow for life. They are just so great as a ship, with all the 'mutual pining, not actually unrequited they're just both idiots, bickering divored-couple-energy that still allows for the spark of new love, the matching color scheme they had in their first looks, the way they look at each other, the freaking hug! It's an amazing ship.

3: brotp

Ironwood and Winter. A lot of people ship them and I can see why, but even though I've long headcanoned them to be the same age, in my head they're just very close friends, close to brother and sister, which makes him accidentally want to favor Weiss and Whitley when he knows them. XD

4: notp

Ironwood and Robyn. Blegh.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

James uses the training facility at Atlas Academy sometimes and will indulge students that want to spar with him. He's always careful and takes things easy on them, and always lets them get in hits to build their self-confidence.

6: favorite line from this character

"You have two choices: Defend your kingdom and your school, or save yourselves. ...No one will fault you if you leave."

This line is so very James at his best, aggggh! Because it starts out professional and stern, not exactly harsh but more blunt, and then the students all give each other these worried anxious looks, and he softens so clearly in his tone and tells them no one is gonna think less of them, that it isn't their job or their duty or morally right to endanger themselves, and that if they make the choice to leave they can. These kids are seventeen, this might be one of the only times in the first seven seasons that anybody told these kids it's okay to prioritize their own lives.

7: one way in which I relate to this character

I am also kind of socially awkward! Ironwood with his tie adjusting and struggling in conversations and kind of stiff deliveries of things like 'it's good to see you again'... Me too, buddy, I also have no idea how to talk to people. XD

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

The villain arc, ugh. What a terribly written final arc to have. It's always embarrassing to have to specify that I like Ironwood outside of his stupid badly done rushed villain arc that turned him into a boring two dimensional evil-laughing rando with a giant gun-gun using his two remaining braincells to do pointlessly evil things just to get at teenagers. Like??? Cringe.

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Problematic fave. Even at IW's very best, he still was flawed in some fun ways, he could do the wrong thing, he could do the right thing but do it in a way that makes you go 'huh.' (Gonna be honest, although I love cinnamon rolls, they're not half as interesting as problematic faves.) XD Aaaand at Ironwood's worst, he was a pointlessly evil stuck up bastard trying to kill and torture people for very little reason, and not in a fun way.

Now for Qrow

1: sexuality headcanon

I headcanon Qrow as bisexual as well, and I also headcanon him as having only realized he was bisexual as a grown adult (partially because Qrow is one of my faves and I project onto my faves, and I only realized I was bi when I was a grown adult. XD)

2: otp

Ironqrow again. XD This ship is just so good that it's my number one fave for both characters.

3: brotp

Qrow and Ozpin. This is a ship that I could see myself enjoying, but what I enjoy even more is them as close friends, with Qrow looking to Oz for guidance and as an authority figure and then the roles reverse when Ozpin gets put into a teenage body and suddenly Qrow is the guide in charge.

4: notp

Funnily enough, this one is also Robyn. Qrow and Robyn started being a ship when she caused a fight and then partially due to her actions, the queercoded Clover was brutally murdered, and then Clover and Qrow spent an entire season doing next to nothing but talking to each other despite their relationship mattering less than any other relationship Qrow had that could've gotten developed, and Robyn compared her problems with her active truth-telling semblance to Qrow's "I hurt everyone around me" problems caused by the passive semblance that makes his life harder despite him not doing anything, and then she was like "don't be sad that your actions helped the Salem worshipper brutally murder your friend, he was probably secretly evil and bad and you're better than that despite the fact that I've known you for like a day." Like, their relationship is nothing but angering for me. XD

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

I have this headcanon that Qrow doesn't realize it, but his bad luck semblance tends to react to large emotions he has. He still absolutely can't control it, but when he's calm and casual and cool, his semblance affects him and the world around him a bit less, and when he's really angry or really sad or even really happy his semblance kicks up and sometimes does really big things like cause unexpected rainstorms and make the electricity in buildings go out and stuff like that.

6: favorite line from this character

Raven: "They were your family." Qrow: "You have a very skewed perception of that word." Maybe it's just because this line fits into my headcanons, but I love it because Qrow's past easily lends itself to him having been abused by the people in the Branwen Camp, and then acquired a found family in Team STRQ and Ozpin, and now he has Yang and Ruby and he was involved in picking up the pieces when Raven left and then again when Summer died, which was probably devastating for him. I also just like Qrow's quippy nature and I like that at least someone was calling out Raven on her BS.

7: one way in which I relate to this character

Despite the fact that I've projected onto Qrow, we actually don't have very many similarities. But I'd say that although it's not nearly to the point of Qrow's own issues, I also struggle with feeling like a burden to the people around me and too much of a mess to deal with. I like writing for Qrow partially because it's a good way to explore those feelings.

8: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

"The size of the waitress's skirt length" Ulgh, gag me with a spoon. The at the time all male writers and one with a particularly bad past regarding misogyny on a show concepted by a guy who likes animating a seventeen year old woman character's boobs to bounce around to a jeering laughing cheering crowd... Yeah, no thanks. I much prefer writing my version of Qrow to flirt a lot but know where the line is and not do things like talk about how hot he finds miniskirts on service workers to his two underage nieces.

9: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Problematic fave for sure. Even at his best, Qrow is a rough-around-the-ages spy with shady connections blindly following a leader and not seeing much wrong with getting kids involved who also picks fights with people and is drowning in his own emotional problems in ways that have negative effects on the people around him. But Qrow also (especially in the third and in the eighth season) like it or not also suffers from the problems of the writers, whether that's never giving a damn about inequality, objectifying service workers in a funny story to his underage nieces, seeming weak willed and hypocritical due to the writer's misuse or retconnings or making him go along with whatever Ruby says after Argus, or actively aiding a servant of Salem in volume seven and losing all his braincells in the process so the writers can force it to happen. Either way, Qrow is very problematic, in some fun and interesting ways and some not so fun ways.

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

Don’t mind me sitting here wondering how so many people can say “Ironwood totes got what he deserved” and in the same breath say “Emerald also totes deserved her redemption”. We have a man who broke himself physically and mentally in the constant fight against Salem and let himself be hated by everyone believing in the long run it would keep everyone safe in one hand and in the other we have the woman who was gleefully helping Salem in her quest to destroy the world without saying so much as an apology for her horrific actions. How the fuck have so many people convinced themselves this is good writing?

[nexyra]

Okay so This is just a way to let out some frustration so I can put it out there and stop mulling on it bc I'm bad at this sort of stuff - Feel free to ignore it

I'm putting this under Read More; if your fav past-time is to call anyone who likes Ironwood's character or was disappointed by his V8 turn to villainy a stupid bootlicker who "should have seen the signs he was always a tyrant !!" please don't interact with this post. You're ultimately free to think what you want but honestly I see enough of that in the main tag when left alone, I don't need it on my blog it doesn't make me feel good.

Anyone else... well you can read if you're interested but you don't have to either. Feel free to respectfully disagree though, I'm not that bullheaded that I can't partake in a friendly argument =) I'll just be listing some things about Ironwood's reading by the FNDM who get old or draining as someone who doesn't like the V8-characterization they went with

Can people please stop just... copy/pasting real world issues on a world/characters that have nothing to do with them or a completely different context ?

Like,, I genuinely try to educate myself on real-world issues. I know I'm rather privileged so I try to listen and hear out people who speak out about the issues they live through day by day. I know why the "ACAB" moniker exists. I understand the problem that lies within the american police system (and likely other countries as well). I see why the army, on our blue planet, is criticized & its many failings. Etc, the list can go on...

But I'm sorry to say, Remnant isn't OUR Earth. Their Army's primary job is to fight actual evil soulless monsters, not people. The Ace Opps or Huntsmen are not an organization directly inherited from slave-hunting groups. James Ironwood isn't the US army general bombing Middle East. Clover Ebi isn't the racist cop you want in prison. So WHY are they treated as such by so many people ? Stories are not a 1-1 where you can take everything you know and just apply it to a completely different world.

Has Atlas been presented as a country that suffers from racism & classism ? Certainly. Has it be shown this way ? That's already more debatable since the only racist arguments we got were in Mantle (which is the city we're supposed to be rooting for so that's a weird choice but eh it's whatever). Are the characters, as persons, shown to evoke these issues in a way that deserve our scorn ? Not really.

Is Ironwood depicted as particularly racist for example ? I wouldn't say so seeing as one (or more considering Tortuga) of his Ace-Opps are Faunus & it seems perfectly accepted; and he hates Jacques Schnee's guts. So why does he get to shoulder all of our real-world issues as if he was responsible for them, in a context where (pre V8) his army had most likely never killed anything else than Grimm and was shown to elicit very positive reactions from most of the population (V3) ? (In direct contrast to the polarization that the US army might evoke for example.)

You can totally hate Ironwood because of the feelings he evoke, the trope he stems from or the parallels to be made. That doesn't mean however, that he IS truly guilty of every one of OUR world issues (pre-V8)

Just because classism is prevalent in Atlas society does not make Ironwood the figurehead & leader of this issue.

Is classism an issue in Atlas ? Yes. That's been made clear because of Mantle's state as well as Jacques Schnee entire existence & even Cinder's backstory. Does that mean every single one of Ironwood's decisions reeks of classism ? NO

Trust me, as someone who found Ironwood's V8 characterization not... well-executed & too much; there's nothing more annoying than being assaulted by posts about his fall going "it was so obvious !! look at -" only for them to then list reasons in a really biased way or even headcannons based on (again) irl problems. An exemple...

Reasons his turn was good that I see thrown around : "Ironwood left Mantle behind because he only wanted to save the rich. He's a selfish coward & an asshole !"

What we were actually given : "Ironwood suffers from PTSD, and faced with Salem's imminent arrival, he tried to save what he was CERTAIN to be able to protect aka the flying city and all the people on it including Mantle evacuees. There is absolutely no text backing the idea that he wanted to leave with Atlas because it's rich. We could even suppose that he would have left with the 'poor' Mantle if it was the flying city and rich people were hanging safely on the ground. There is indeed an issue with Atlas & Mantle disparity, but Ironwood isn't directly responsible for it."

Does that make his decision to leave Mantle behind a morally right one ? That's of course NOT what I'm saying. The situation is still very ambiguous. But the classism theme has NO place here.

"Ironwood leads Atlas & Mantle. As such, he inherently holds responsability for the issues plaguing it." THIS is an acceptable reading according to me. I would probably argue that even if Ironwood's the only Atlas leader we're shown; he actually only oversees the military & academy (where we haven't ever seen classism issues), so putting Atlas' classism issues on him still doesn't sound fair to me. However the idea & argument is sound.

Acknowledging only how his actions look/the tyrannical surface reading and not the reasonnable justifications or glimpses we were given (pre-V7) of Ironwood being more than his trope

I'll probably stop after this one, but the last thing that is both tiring & annoying after too much of it; is seeing people boil down all of Ironwood's character to the most basic summary, inherently written to paint him in a bad line. And then saying that everything led up to his downfall by using these watered-down versions of the show's events to justify it. Or worse (imo), saying that people who are not satisfied with his V8 characterization that THEY don't understand how good a character he is and don't really appreciate him.... All the while only ever highlighting his characters flaws. Please stop this.

"Ironwood brought an army to the peace Olympics why are you surprised he turned out this way ?" ==> Ironwood brought an army to a country where the civilians visibly have no issue with said-army, to protect a peaceful event that he KNOWS to be targeted by foes. It's definitely overzealous & his conviction that threats should be dealt with by blunt force IS one of his flaws; but pretending that he did it for fun or because he's a tyran is just as misplaced.

"Ironwood said he'd shoot Qrow if he were one of his men why are you surprised he shot Oscar ?" ==> Do I really need to flip through every joke in this show and consider it as absolute truth & proof that the character would enact these words if given the occasion; even when we're shown with certainty that they actually don't mean it ? (IW hugging Qrow to welcome him, refusing to attack Qrow when he's certain Qrow IS attacking him...)

"Ironwood has his military all over Mantle, there's a curfew, all of this is tyrannical why are you surprised he's also down for genocide" ==> Damn, it sure is criminal to have Mantle defended from the litteral monsters roaming inside & out, and to make sure with a curfew that the people are not at risk during the night. I wonder if any recent events could make us reconsider our stance on how evil a enforced curfew is. Mhmmm maybe a pandemic ? Nah I must be imagining things. For real though, at what point did Tyrian's framing/lies (IW has his soldiers all over Mantle because of politics/he's a tyran who refuses opposition) became the truth of the situation for the FDNM too ? Again Mantle's situations SUCK, and that's a problem in itself. Making up problematic reasoning for the situation is dishonest though.

To end this, I'll just make clear. I do not condone any of Ironwood's actions post-V7. I don't think he had to be the big hero of the Atlas arc. Nor that he was without faults. I merely think that he'd have been a better antagonist than villain. And that it'd have been nice to keep the ambiguity/morally greyness that surrounds him; the knowledge that he's TRYING hard to do what's best for everyone; that he has good intentions. That he cares about individuals too to a lesser degree, and that he had people who cared about him as a person.

For short... Ironwood as an antagonist with understandable issues, flaws & failures; making questionable choices but with good intentions ? Hell yeah. Ironwood as a villain, more irredeemable than Hazel, willing to kill people for NO reason or even wipe out a city ? I'm not convinced.

[mailka]

I think I know why I really don't like ironwood v8 story: it's almost identical to daenerys s8 story (do you think crwby watched got s8 and thought it was the best thing ever?)

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

That’s another thing! Jacques was working with Watts and Salem! The SDC is exploiting the citizens of Mantle! “We ShOuLd HaVe LiStEnEd To JaCqUeS!” My sibling in Remnant, he was part of the problem!

You anon hit the nail on the head. Jacques was the one who worked with Watts because he was power hungry and wanted the council seat because he was angry James dared to tell him "no" and tried to stop his exploitation of vulnerable workers and was trying to keep people safe. Jacques didn't like that he might not make billions anymore. All he cared about was money. Nothing else. His entire motivation is money. He says it himself when talking to Watts about James:

"That bastard is costing me more money every day with this embargo. I'd lay off every employee in Mantel if I wasn't trying to get their damn votes for this council seats."

Does anything in that sentence even remotely imply he gives any fucks about the people in Mantel? He's happy to let them starve and suffer if it means he gets more money. He is like every corporation that during the COVID lockdowns left their employee's floundering and uncertain how they where going to pay for their next meals or rent or their mortgage. He does not care about anyone but himself. His life is all that matters. Meanwhile we see the army stopping and asking what they should do when the people start rioting in the streets over what is happening instead of immediately using force to control them. We see James, looking terrified when he realizes the people in Mantel will die because the heat went out and people would freeze.

This is the face of the man afraid for the people in Mantel. Jacques only cared that he got caught.

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

Winter's refusal to even try to argue with Ironwood made me dislike her more, in addition to ignoring martial law being her idea. It reminds me of Blake never reasoning with Adam until it was far too late and him never trying to turn her back to his side after she left. It's unrealistic how easily Adam and Ironwood were tossed aside as lost causes when the circumstances of their villainy (faunus rights and imminent invasion of the kingdom) should've left plenty of room for nuance and redemption.

Same here anon. It is so damn hard to look at Winter in any sort of positive light, even in earlier seasons, knowing what she does to James, someone who she should care about and want to help. People talk about how strong she is for being willing to take out someone she "cares" for. But the issue with this is she never even tries to talk him down making it feel less like her being strong and more like her being a coward who is unwilling to even try and talk to someone she cares about because she's to scared for some reason.

Given James and Adam's reasons for doing what they do, yea they really should have been very high up on the list for redemption. Higher then freaking Emerald who never even apologized for what she did to Penny. But neither get help, they're just tossed aside as to far gone. Now with Adam it might have gone over a little better if their was another activist group trying to help Faunus rights, but that plot point died with Adam leaving a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths over the whole thing and I can't blame people for it.

With James....oh James. My boy. I wouldn't have liked the plot but they could have made James's fall actually work. Lean into his fears making him spiral. Show him cracking under the pressure from it all and having to fight against a council Jacques owns because he bought them out. Just....something besides his semblance and him losing his arm made him lose his humanity. He especially though could have been saved and reached if someone anyone even bothered to try and reach him. But no one did, not even his right hand.

I used to love Winter and believed that she cared about James, that she would do anything to help her and he her. But....volume 8 showed that she doesn't care. That he doesn't matter enough to her to be willing to try and save him. In fact, we don't see her give a damn about anyone besides Weiss but...that doesn't really help her in the end. She didn't care about saving her father, didn't care about saving James or any of the people she was supposedly working with and mentoring, Weiss's friends or even really the civilians she was supposed to care about. Theirs's just....nothing. And it's almost impossible to root for someone that clearly just doesn't care.

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

I’ve already ragged Qrow for this scene but I had a realization today that has only made me angrier at him.

This is Qrows face when James admitted he told people he trusted explicitly about Salem. Qrow, you told 3 complete strangers about Salem. He didn’t know who Ren, Nora and Jaune where. He’d never met them before, sure he knew Pyrrha but that doesn’t mean he knew the team. All they needed to be was Ruby’s friends apparently to have earned the truth but James’s trusted confident’s makes him completely untrustworthy somehow?

QROW WHAT IS THIS HYPOCRISY? And you know I know it’s not really how Qrow would have normally reacted but the damn hive mind taking over but it’s still frustrating to see someone who previously trusted James without question now being distrustful towards him for doing the exact same thing only SMARTER.

[kitkatopinions]

You know, this whole “Ironwood is image obsessed” thing that people are apparently saying yet again... Is yet another example of RWBY simps and IW antis that are trying to drain literally any good thing away from Ironwood’s character and then still claiming that he’s nuanced.

James is not image obsessed, it’s literally a defining characteristic of his that he’s willing to do what he thinks needs to be done regardless of how that makes him look. People are just doing whatever they can to try and pretend James Ironwood has always been all bad and has never been any sort of good and then they’re taking their warped, not backed by canon, and even sometimes directly going against canon ideas and presenting them as the truth that they uncovered that people are just ignoring to be dumb.

Ironwood is brave, Ironwood is strong, Ironwood is self-sacrificing, Ironwood is more experienced than most of our protagonists, Ironwood is devoted, Ironwood tries his hardest, Ironwood does what he thinks is right, Ironwood is willing to sacrifice his own wants and needs and reputation to get done what he thinks must be done.

That obviously isn’t to say that James doesn’t have bad traits, because good, well rounded characters have both - heroes or villains or anything in-between. But the behavior of antis of literally trying as hard as they can to take any and everything James does and turning it into something either bad or totally faked... That’s straight up removing any nuance and subtlety from the character and making him even more two dimensional than CRWBY made him become in season eight already.

Of course, people can headcanon whatever the hell, twist James in their fanfictions and their writings to better fit their purposes, but it just isn’t canon James. It’s okay to hate a character with good traits, it’s okay to like a character with bad traits.

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

I should probably clarify something real quick in that I do not agree one bit with what Ironwood did in volume 8, that said I also vehemently reject the existence on volume 8 given the sheer character assignation that occurred not only of James but really of everyone that volume and the overall train wreck it was. 

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

A thought: Having the Staff be what keeps Atlast floating is a really arbitrary and frankly naratively stupid idea. Instead have it so Atlas has some really big and advanced anti-gravity generators. That way the threat of Watts would be greater, and the removal of the staff (slightly) less idiotic. Have a Watts killswitch in the anti-gravs, when Ironwood executes him (instead of sleet) they start shutting down. Cue Ironwood and friends having to portal out of there to survive. Bam! Plot impoved!

Having the staff being the thing holding up Atlas is a pretty dangerous choice as Volume 8 so clearly showed us. The wrong person gets the staff and has something else made and Atlas and Mantle are destroyed.

But that is a pretty cool idea! It would also add a lot of weight to Jacques giving Watts his access codes because then it’s an easy backdoor into the system keeping Atlas floating. And having Watts release a virus into the system rather then Penny would be pretty awesome or the killswitch idea. Either one would make more sense then what they did to James and well everyone to make the volume happen. Having Atlas’s systems failing and Pietro unable to stop it from falling would make the weird portal things actually work and make at least some sense because their is a sense of urgency they don’t have time to plan they have to move and they have to move FAST or a lot of people would die. It would also explain why they take the relics with them rather then locking them up because they fear the crash might be enough to break them and they wouldn’t be secure anymore.

CRWBY come on look at all these better solutions to the train wreck that was Volume 8!

[nexyra]

James Ironwood, for character ask? 👀

Aaaa thank you so much for the ask ♡ More rambling incoming !! Sorry for the wait btw, I've been both pretty busy and tired ;;

If you hate James Ironwood and don't wanna hear one good thing about him tap out now please ღ

My fav ship(s) for the character

I am not a super big shipper when it comes to James, but there are still some I like more than others soo here goes :

I think Ironwitch is a pretty good one. It's not necessarily a ship I'd search content for but I think these two would work well together ! Glynda is stern and honest and a no-nonsense kind of woman. She has the strenght to stand up to James when he slips or gets too stubborn when faced with the high stakes. At the same time, we've been shown that she cares for him and she knows he's only trying to do what's best for people. She has faith in him but also the ability to stand at his side as an equal. She seems to be the more steadfast of Ozpin's circle : loyal, you know you can trust her, and she will not crumble. This is the kind of personnality that I think James both admire and feel safe with. And the other way around, I think James is a good match for Glynda too. On a day to day basis, he's serious enough to not annoy here, but he's also a softie in some aspects and that's a nice combination to smooth out Glynda's edges.

Ironqrow is a completely different dynamic. The "we're annoying each other" dynamic is not one I'm particularly interested in usually xD But these two certainly had strong & interesting moments so it's a pretty valid ship !! Despite how they might butt heads because of the difference in their upbringing they (prior to V8) clearly trusted each other with their life. Even if Qrow jokes about shooting himself if he had to be one of James' man, when everything goes to shit there is no doubt in his mind that James wasn't responsible. Similarly, while James talks of shooting Qrow for his misbehaviour, when push comes to shove and we meet a tired Ironwood, run ragged by the pressure he's under... the only thing he does is hug him and reiterates how glad he is to see him. So again, they clearly have a lot of faith and trust in the other, and that's solid ground for a relationship.

My least favorite ship(s) for the character

Same spiel as always, shipping kids and adults is a big no from me; so any ships between Ironwood and RWBYJNOR can qualify here. That said, among the less uncomfortable ones, here are those I don't really like

This one is again because I love their relationship but platonically only, I'm talking of Winter Soldier. The reading I like best is not that Ironwood is Winter's Jacques 2.0, nor that he groomed her; but that he was an important father figure in her life. Protective and caring, who tried to help her escape with what he knew. I don't see James recruiting Winter as a way to gain a strong ally. But rather that Winter wanted to detach herself from her family name, and make something worthwhile of herself all on her own. And that the military is what Ironwood knows and understand, so naturally it's a career he'd see as a good path. Just like Winter then proposed it to Weiss. I like to think they care about each other a LOT and they're their own tight family in between the lines, even if professionalism might throw a wrench into it. For short I love them together but not romantically please =)

I don't know if there's a ship name for this, but Salem x James Ironwood would be a big nope from me too... In general, let's just assume I ship Salem with nobody because abuse.

My fav & least fav platonic relationship(s) for the character

Fav platonic relationship would be (have been because we dont talk about V8?) with Winter. Fooor the reasons I've explained above I suppose x) I (again) love the trust they had in one another and the quiet support.

There was also his relationship with Oscar that I really liked during V7, although it has been soured a bit by the (valid) reading from some people that Ironwood sought out Ozpin a lot through Oscar, and given his identity issues it is not ground for a greatly healthy relationship. Their interactions were still very intersting though ♡ I consider Oscar to be the kid who went at trying to appease James' fear or make him reconsider his decisions the best way. There was true understanding and hope for a working relationship here. I do feel that Oscar put in more work than James however (emotionally) and I wish there had been pay-back instead of a gunshot.

For my least fav relationship ? Probably Robyn or Watts ? Robyn was always very antagonistic toward Ironwood since their priorities are so different. And I overall just don't really like her after V7 so there are very few relationships with her I'm interested in (the exception is her ship with Fiona I think it's cute). Meanwhile, Watts is just a petty asshole hell bent on ruining Ironwood because he didn't pick his project. I'm not very interested in hate relationships, and since theirs wasn't deeply explored anyway, it's even more the case here. Their fight was great though, one of my favorite RWBY fights !

My favorite thing about the character

Well this was completely proven wrong by V8 buuut as of V7 I liked that he was a deconstruction of the military general (dictator) trope. Sooo you can guess how i feel about V8 X) In general among RWBY, several of my fav are fav BECAUSE they look like one trope but also have key differences that from the get go make the character stray away from said trope. For example I'm not a fan of the princess tsundere archetype at all, but I loooved Weiss in V1 BECAUSE she was extra-willing to listen and change her mind, and you could very easily tell that it was her upbringing speaking more than herself in most occasions.

Similarly, I wasn't a big fan of Ironwood before V7. I didn't hate him you know and he wasn't lower than most characters in my Tier list but I also didn't particularly care. But you know what ? I've aaaalways had a really soft spot for the "angsty angry traumatized teen". And RWBY made the mistake of extending that soft spot to "tired adults trying their best" (only to repeatedly beat them up/make them villains after making me care about them but what can you do uh)

Soo in general, I loved that Ironwood was trying so hard. I loved that he was tired and in over his head but learning and listening and trying to do good and be better despite his fears. I liked that he told his entourage about Salem and was loyal. I liked that he cared about helping the people above his own image and the way people perceived him. I liked that you could tell this was a terrible situation all around, and his decisions WERE questionnable but we could SEE that he meant WELL and was genuinely trying so hard despite how scared and tired he was.

My biggest criticism for the character

Well this won't be a surprise but in general I just wished he had stayed a morally grey character we were allowed to feel for instead of a cartoon black villain. I didn't need James to be THE Hero or anything like this despite some accusations levelled at those who like him. Him becoming one of RWBY's antagonist is honestly fine by me ! It is interesting. But I'd have preferred they kept him ambiguous and trying in his own way. (And smart because V8 Ironwood was dumb af)

I can be a tad overprotective of his character since he's just... so despised, so I think that I have inadvertently distanced myself from any of his flaws... somehow like "people are already yelling all of them so I don't need to add to this shit show" you know ? skjfkd But I KNOW he has them and it would still have been good to develop his flaws, just... not like that

But yea I'd have liked it if V8 Ironwood DID diverge from RWBYJNORQ and became an antagonist but not an iredeemable villain. LIKE,, we redeemed Hazel and Emerald and IRONWOOD is where the writers draw the line by saying "nope this one is rotten" ?? What ?

When was their writing at the peak according to me (ex : best season)

V7 definitely ! Ironwood carried V7 so hard haha. His character was fleshed out and given nuance and made to struggle and evolve and I loved him in that volume.

A song I think fits them & why

Hunger • Monsters & Men Human • Rag'n'Bone Man Way down we go • Kaleo Beekeeper • Keaton Henson Thistle and weeds • Mumford and Sons Castle of Glass • Linkin Park It's all so incredibly loud • Glass Animals

A headcanon to make up about them

His metal parts impact his metabolism so Ironwood is terrible at holding his alcohool and very little manages to knock him out. He's a workaholic. His low tolerence for alcohool is a great tool whn friends need to put him to sleep.

His joints crack and hurt in the cold, his metal parts as well and they are an hassle in the sand. James like to keep his room temperature warmer than the average atlasian because of this, otherwise he has to spend 30 min every morning simply unwiding muscles to move around efficiently.

He's not a good singer but has a nice low voice for telling stories. If he had kids, he'd probably avoid lullabies but compensate with bedtimes stories.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

As always, I'm kind of reflecting along the way as I write this, and one thing I'm thinking right now is... Doesn't it take away from the atlas arc message ITSELF to just pile up so many "standard bad guy" stuff on Ironwood ? Like, I wanna ask... why do we hate him ? Is he an antagonist because he lets fear get the best of him ? Because he's a classist who doesn't care about Mantle like some fans argue ? Because he's too stubborn and wants to be THE hero ? Because he doesn't listen to others ? Because he abandonned Mantle ? Because he kills peopke left and right ? Because he wanted to bomb a city ? I think you might see where I'm going with this : his status as villain is kind of messy. V8 just kept piling-up flaws and villainous actions onto Ironwood with no concern for whether this was a lenght he would go to (using the certainty that he would go to any lenghts to enact his plans), ,or whether these were one of the initial flaws/failings that led to his "fall" as an antagonist. What lesson is Ironwood supposed to learn ? Personally the very first time I yelled at my screen "No ! Why would the writers choose that ?" is when Ironwood shot Oscar. When answering criticism against medias, many people tend to look at it only through the lense of "well it makes sense in universe" or as if there were no other ways for the story to devolve. But at the end of the way, everything in a story is a choice from the writer even if it is influenced by the characters' personnalities. If I took the scene where Ironwood shoots Oscar, someone might tell me "he's crippled by his PTSD, he COULD do this." Maybe, that's a reading I can somewhat understand at least. But the writers have the power to NOT put his character in such a position. When I saw the wreck that was V7 finale, I ranted to my bestfriend about it and at no point did i say "why did Ironwood do that", I said "why did the writers make him shoot Oscar, the only point narratively would be to make irredeemable" Aaaand that's what they went for and I obviously didn't care for it. So if I had to rewrite it; I would have kept Ironwood's "mistakes" more focused. If he's wrong because he wants to abandon Mantle, because he's (understandably) scared and doesn't want to take risks; then stay focused on that. It's what makes RWBY leave, and out of all his V8 actions that's really the only thing RWBY needed to tell the whole world he wasn't an ally anymore apparently. - Don't make him shoot Oscar point blank, instead Oscar can simply fall because he flinches away from Ironwood's outburst; and a distraught/guilty Ironwood can decide that he doesn't have the time or capacity to help because of the tense situation. (Killing and not saving someone don't hold the same moral weight at all). - Don't make him kill people left and right or bomb cities, maintain the flaw of Ironwood struggling with his PTSD and his fear and not being able to take risks. - Don't paint him as a black villain, and eventually write V8 in such a way that RWBYJNORQ show taking risks might lead to a bigger victory, which was the volume's theme anyway. For example, following Oscar's destruction of the whale, a growth can occur that would bring back together the two anti-Salem factions : Oscar's risk put Atlas out of harm's way, which leads to Ironwood seeing that maybe there WAS a way to save Mantle as well as Atlas despite Salem's presence and he might have jumped the gun too quickly because of his fears. I'm not sure, I haven't thought about this extensively honestly but I hope you see what I mean. I think it would have been more focused & more in-character to focus Ironwood's failings on his fear; and the fact that he cares for the people and the greater good sometimes at the cost of the individuals. The idea that by sacrificing individuals too much you forget the people you're fighting for in the first place, could have been interesting to dig deeper into. Keep to the idea that Ironwood is somewhat disensitized to the individuals suffering for the sake of the greater good, instead of making him just

callous & uncaring.

My guess for their MBTI/Enneagram

I think pre-V8 Ironwood was an unconventionnal ENFJ. Aka, the type of character no one would type ENFJ because they go by stereotypes and Fe stereotypes are just enneagram 2 everywhere (aka nice, kind, helpful) whereas Ironwood has an enneagram tritype very common among xxTJs so that's what he looks/behaves like, but the way he thinks (what's best for the people, ethical values derived from an Atlasian upbringing) align more with Fe cognitively I think I'm going with ENFJ 6w5 1w2 3w4

Starting from V8 though, Ironwood veered clearly into ENTJ territory (types aren't supposed to change but I wouldn't say RWBY is the most consistent media when it comes to characters' personnalities)

One aspect that I think would be nice to delve deeper into ?

I understand why they didn't care to, but it'd have been interesting to get a few backstory hints for Ironwood. How did he lose half his body ? How did Oz recruit him ? Or some pieces about his upbringing ?