#idek who I’m willing to sacrifice this literally couldn’t be worse for me

[theamazingannie]

Nooo the ride or die double blockings??? My favorites are paired with my least favorites😭😭😭

[itsclydebitches]

Is it bad that I feel Penny’s 2nd permanent death has cheapened the stakes to me to such an extent I don’t care if the character’s life are in danger or even ended? Unless they die in a particularly gruesome manner…I don’t care. Penny’s death was cheap, tasteless, and I think sucked all the stakes to me.

I've personally had a problem with RWBY's death stakes ever since Weiss' injury in the Haven fight. Making that an episode cliffhanger when we all knew RT would never commit to killing one of the main four, using that as the means of unlocking Jaune's semblance, and then, importantly, never following up on how Weiss deals with a near-death experience felt quite cheap to me. It was a moment where death/grievous injury was used only for the week long shock value (similar to Oscar's disappearance in Volume 6) and a means of furthering Jaune's abilities rather than Weiss' emotional growth (particularly egregious in a show where 99% of the cast already has their semblances unlocked. Revealing them in a dramatic, life-or-death situation was never an expectation). The fact that it was such a departure from how the story treated Yang in the past — committing to her injury and allowing her time to come to terms with it — just made it all the worse.

However, though this was one moment out of one volume that fans might be willing to overlook for a variety of reasons, Volumes 7-8 just failed so spectacularly and so often that yeah, death has no real meaning in this show anymore.

Let's tally things up:

Clover dies in large part to Qrow's stupidity. This is never acknowledged.

Qrow instead swears vengeance against Ironwood. They never meet again.

Whether everyone agrees or not, this entire situation came too close to queerbaiting for some fans.

Clover's corpse/the environment is badly animated, leading to confusion about whether he actually died.

Oscar is shot off of Atlas in a move that would have been a killing blow if not for Ozpin's unexpected magic. He never works through this and likewise never even explains things to the rest of the group, adding to the secrets issue.

The councilman is randomly shot by Ironwood, signaling his fast-track towards villainy.

The Ace Ops and, more importantly, Winter all witness this, yet it has no impact on them remaining loyal until leaving him serves the plot.

Ironwood tearing the flesh off his arm to save everyone from Watts is treated as evidence of his lack of humanity and the prosthetic he gets carries is designed to highlight how Evil he is now.

Fria dies which has little emotional weight because we knew nothing about her. She was quite literally only a vessel for the powers and was treated as such by the story.

The Hound, introduced as an incredibly formidable foe, is done in by a badly developed power and a falling suit of armor. There's no interest in who that faunus was, only what this implies for Summer.

Hazel death is confusing af. He couldn't have burned to death that fast. Oscar's cane shouldn't have hurt him based on what else we see. Where's the body? All of this follows a split-second "redemption."

Vine sacrifices himself and no one cares because we knew nothing about him. Also it's kind of weird to frame his heroic suicide as, you know, heroic after a volume of telling Penny she can't do the same. It's just weird mixed messaging.

Rhodes was killed incredibly fast by his kid student and although I care a little about him, the general consensus is that this was a girlboss moment because flawed men trying to help are the worst, right? Far worse than a villain we established in Episode One.

Watts presumably burns to death off screen.

Ironwood presumably drowns off screen.

Jacques is blown up without any of his family knowing about it. He's blown up because Winter just... left Ironwood's gun-gun by the cell?

The community is still debating whether Maria and Pietro are alive. Was Amity still falling? Was there any way off? Why don't any of the characters worry about them, one of whom is Pietro's daughter?

Yang "dies" after a single hit and only Blake gets to react to that.

The rest of the group (plus Jaune) quickly follow, to the surprise of no one.

Penny is resurrected with little fanfare, is stripped of her cyborg nature, gears up to take on Cinder with Weiss and Jaune, is instantly taken out, and then convinces the healer of the group to kill her.

The Altas arc has so much death and grievous injury — clearly trying to be the next Volume 3 — and yet none of it has an (enjoyable) impact on me. Sometimes that's because RT is killing off side characters they never bothered to develop. Sometimes it's because the writing is so confusing idek if the character is dead. Sometimes it's because the circumstances induce anger rather than grief. Penny's second death definitely caused a reaction, but not the one RT was going for. I was frustrated with how badly constructed this suicide was, disappointed in how the circumstances leading up to this erased so much that's wonderful about Penny's character, and yeah, disgusted that we were right back to that Volume 5 Weiss scenario: here's the graphic death/almost death of one of the girls to forward his story. Only this time, instead of just getting a cauterized spear to the gut, RT thought assisted-suicide via sword was the way to go.

Penny's original death was heart wrenching. Pyrrha's was tragic due to how avoidable it was. Roman's was shocking and perfect for setting the new stakes. We didn't know if Ozpin survived, but back then that was the point — a mystery to reveal next volume — not because the scene was badly constructed, or the writing seemingly just forgot that characters existed. And again, flawed as it was in some respects, we got a story of Yang losing an arm and coming to terms with that. Now, we get the story of a man losing his arm and that makes him lose his intelligence and conscience too, I guess.

I'm trying to think of a post-Volume 3 death that hit home and I'm coming up short. But deaths like Sienna or Tock, while carrying their own problems, didn't really hint at the over-arching problem with character deaths the story now has. With the comparative wealth of fatalities we got in Volumes 7-8, I was finally able to step back and go, "Wow. Right...none of that did anything for me." And yeah, as one of the most shocking deaths, as a second death, and as one of the oldest and most beloved side characters, Penny encapsulates that best of all.