#like... all atlas did was the 'i like your funny words magic man' equivalent that honestly could have also been an invitation to a cult fr

[aho-dapa]

Gonna be fr, if Atlas Blakely came up to me and offered me a spot to the Alexandrian Society but I only had between 1 - 5 hours to make a decision, I would literally think he's running a magical scam and go on with my life like fr

[littlemisssquiggles]

So, I've read some of your, admittedly, amazing analysis posts about RWBY, and I just have one question. Now that V6 is over what are your thoughts on the future of our favorite villain duo, Emerald and Mercury? With the revelations and concerns brought up in Volume 6, what do you think is going to happen to them moving forward?

Hiya Cats! Thank you so much for the lovely comment. Pleased to hear that youenjoyed my RWBY Musings posts. To answer your question; prior to V6’s premiere,I shared RWBY Musing #49 voicing my thoughts and theories for what I perceived to be the futuregoing forward for the Jaded Duo.

After V5, I was under the impression that theFall of Cinder would’ve led to Emerald and Mercury going rogue with Hazeltagging along with them. I figured that these three would’ve decided to notreturn to Salem out of fear of her punishment, especially Emerald since hermonstrous apparition of her back at Haven clearly painted her terrors of thewicked witch.

I was later disappointed to learn that theydid indeed return to Salem in V6. Moreover, I was disappointed with how theseries left Mercury and Emerald’s story. At least in the case of Tyrian, Wattsand even Cinder who are all on their way to Atlas, nothing concrete was really setup for Emerald and Mercury.

The story touched based on them in V6 C9,sprinkled some interesting titbits regarding Mercury’s past and then…nothingelse. Tyrian interrupted their moment and gave them some advice, if you’d callit that, but beyond that---I’m not sure what is going to happen of these two.

If I had to guess, my safest bet is thatwhile Tyrian and Watts are at Atlas, Emeraldand Mercury would be deployed to Vacuo along with Hazel. Before being interrupted with the news of Ozpin’s reincarnation, Salemmentioned Shade Academy being her next target.

What’s interesting is that Salem wasn’t focusedon claiming the Relic of Creation. Heck she wasn’t even that much concernedwith the failure to obtain the Relic of Knowledge either. The only reason sheswitched gears was because she learned that Ozpin is back, leaving the windowopen for him to reunite with Ironwood.  To me it seems like Salem is more interestedin sparking conflict between the kingdoms by using Atlas as their scapegoatagain. In C9, Tyrian told Mercury and Emerald this:

“…There’sbeen a change in plans. Her grace must act swiftly if we are to prevail. IfGeneral Ironwood comes to his senses and calls upon aid from Vacuo, all may belost for us. So the Good Doctor and I are being sent to Atlas to prepare…”

My theory is that Salemplans on possibly using Atlas Kingdom to spark a second Great War starting withVacuo. Not only would another war provide theperfect cover fire for Salem and her forces to swoop in and claim the remainingrelics undetected, but it will also feed into Salem’s true scheme for thedamnation of humanity.

The cards have already been laid out for us.In the Lost Fable, the God of Light revealed to Ozma in the Realm Between Realms that thecombined power of the Relics doesn’t grant anyone God-like power. I mean magic is the closestin canon equivalent to the power of a god and unlike Ozma, Salem still has allof hers. Instead the Relics will summon the Brothers back to Remnant. Fromthere, humanity will be judged by the brothers. If it is shown that peacereigns throughout the lands then the brothers shall return to Remnant andhumanity will be ‘made wholeagain’ as the God of Light described. However if warand anarchy prevails then the Brothers will consider mankind irredeemable andRemnant as we know it will be wiped out of existence.

The God of Light provided humanity a secondchance to rebuild themselves with Ozma and the other Wizards throughout timeworking diligently to uphold that. However I believe Salem’s plan is to causethe destruction of Remnant. I believe Salem’s ultimate plan is to spark anotherwar between the four kingdoms, throwing the world into chaos as it was 80 yearsprior and once the war begins, Salem will complete acquiring the Relics and usetheir combined power to to summon the Gods back to Remnant.

Seeing humanity reduced to chaos, the Godswill provide Salem what she wants. The destruction of humanity and Remnant. Idon’t know if Salem’s other plan is to also take down the Brother Gods,becoming the Goddess she claimed herself to be and using her newfound status toremake the world in her image as well. But that’s another theory.

Returning to the Jaded Duo, I’d like tobelieve that Salem hasn’t abandoned pursuing the Relic of Destruction. I feel likeshe would send her remaining three pawns (Mercury, Emerald and Hazel) to Vacuo.

While it wasn’t how I pictured it, I’mactually a little intrigued by this possibility. Vacuo has been described asthis sort of place where anyone can make a home and start anew so long as theycan survive the desert. Before V6, my original theory was that Emerald would’vebecome the Fall Maiden, unintentionally inheriting Cinder’s power. Then amonstrous grimmified Cinder betrays Emerald completely and returns to try andtake the maiden magic back---Emerald would kill Cinder and together with Hazeland Mercury, the three would head for Vacuo to start anew believing it to betheir safe haven where Salem would never find them or something like that.

While Emerald didn’t become a Maiden as Ithought, Tyrian’s last words to her and Mercury definitely left me curious. Tyrian toldthem that if they do not love what they are doing then they are in the wrongprofession. Even though the option of leaving was immediately debunked, whyhave Tyrian say it if it’s not mean to be a hanging question that’s going to beon Emerald and Mercury’s minds going forward?

What would have been interesting is if theCRWBY Writers had had Emerald pursue Cinder. Like perhaps Emerald leaves on her own to find Cinder because shebelieved in her and the relationship they shared despite Mercury’s words. Thatcould’ve been an interesting subplot to follow.

However…it seems as if Emerald has gottenover Cinder; even after discovering that she’s still alive. If there’s onething I’m still hoping for with Emerald’s character, it’s the nature of herbond with Mercury and Hazel to grow.

I’m still banking on Hazel and Mercurybecoming the family that Emerald never got to have. I’m still hoping that Hazel will come to see a surrogate little sisterin Emerald. Be the version of Gretchen he failed toprotect. His willingness to accept punishment for Emerald during V6 indicatedthis to me. I loved that. I want more of it. I want more opportunities forHazel and Emerald to grow and develop a brother and sister type ofrelationship.

And since I am a Jaded shipper, I wantEmerald and Mercury to evolve in their dynamic as well. I’m not sure if romance is truly in thecards for these two. Nonetheless, I mostly want to see Mercury come togenuinely care for Emerald and see her as someone he wishes to protect and keep by hisside. Someone who can possibly love him or at least provide him the care and compassion that he wasunfortunately denied as a little boy.

“…I’m sorry youdidn’t have a mommy that loved you but I had a father who hated me…”

Mercury has only known hate. Hate breedshate. It’s funny, when Cinder first met Mercury, one of the first questions sheasked him if whether or not he was like his father. You can even say that partof Mercury’s drive as a character is to be someone who was better than his fatherand it showed during his monologue to Emerald in C9.

“…He neverwent easy on me. Every day of training was a beating and when I unlocked mysemblance, he stole it with his. This is a crutch. This makes you weak. He toldme I could have it back when I was strong so I got strong. But I never got itback.

 I’ve had to work harder than anyone to get where I am. You may not likeit here without Cinder but I think I’m right where I’m supposed to be…”

This single paragraph of dialogue revealed moreto me about Merc and how he thinks than anything else he’s said throughoutRWBY. That’s the proof in the pudding. Mercury isn’t with Salem because he generally believes in her cause.He chose her side because apparently it’s the side with the least amount ofeffort. To Mercury, siding with the forces of evil is the easy route.

After suffering a life where he spent more ofit working hard and pushing himself past his breaking point only for hisefforts to reveal no true payoff in the form of him never regaining his lostsemblance, Mercury had enough. I saw this scene as Mercury’s way of implyingthat he’s given up on hope. Why bother working hard to maintain peace and order when it’s easierto spark disorder since, as Jinn put it, the hearts of man are easily swayed.Why bother fighting to thwart an enemy that can’t be killed when you can justside with said immortal enemy and aid them in their endeavours to ensure yoursurvival.

In Mercury’s head, siding with Salem---theimmortal goddess who no one---not even the Great and Powerful Ozpin can kill(and still hasn’t figured out a way to kill in centuries, mind you) is the winningside. She’s the easy way and to a guy like Mercury who’s had to work hard for everything, that’shis best option.

In a weird way, Mercury’s justification in C9highlighted the other side of learning the truth about Salem. Throughout RWBY’srun, we’ve seen three reactions to main characters learning of Salem’s immortalityand invincibility.

On one end, you have our heroes who stillbelieve in protecting humanity from Salem and believe in working towardstopping her in spite the impossible odds. One another end, you have those likeLionheart and Mercury who sided with Salem because they saw her as the easy wayout as opposed to being killed trying to fight her and then there’s Raven endof simply running away from it all and doing your best not to get involved. Fascinatingdeep stuff, right?

Going back to Mercury. As I said, Mercury hasnever known what it’s like to care or be cared by someone else. He’s only knownto care for himself and look out for his own survival. But what’s intriguing tome about Merc is that there are traits that defy this selfish aspect of hispersonality.

Despite acting like he doesn’t care, Merc has been shown to care for Emerald. He’s even been shown to kind of flirt with a bit too hence why I started shipping them. His introduction lineto Emerald from V2 still gets me every time.

“…Whatever.You want me.”

Despite being raised by an abusive father,Mercury isn’t anything like him. Mercury hasshown to have a soft side forEmerald. It’s even highlighted in V6 C9.

Let’s all be real. Mercury could have easilykicked Emerald’s ass during that first scene especially in hand to hand combat.But I found it rather interesting that Mercury seemed to have gone easy on Emerald. Sure he acted callously towards her at first but…even aftershe struck at him in frustration, Merc held back.

Yes he countered Emerald’s attacks but as I’llsay again, Mercury can easily overpower Emerald in hand to hand especially sincehe can read her frantic movements from a mile away. Mercury is ruthless withothers but surprisingly lax with Emerald. In his own way, he cares for her. Sheis possibly the one person whose well-being he values as much as his own and itcould be exciting if the story tackled more on that.

Not to mention that I’m VERY interested inseeing Mercury interact more withHazel. I feel these two alpha males might clashover what’s best for Emerald but for the most part I think Hazel could providethe healthy paternal relationship that he never got to have with his real father.

At this moment, I don’t think Hazel is awareof Mercury’s abuse. Makes me wonder how he would feel toward him and treat himafter that. Could be very cool to see granted that we get to see it movingforward.

To concludemy answer: That’s pretty much my thoughts on Jaded. I hope this answers yourquestion Cats.

On one last note, I don’t think we’ll beseeing the Jaded Duo for V7 though or…most of the Atlas Arc. I wouldn’t besurprised if Emerald and Mercury fall into the pit of obscurity for the AtlasArc and we might not see them in the story again until the Vacuo Arc. Unlessthe CRWBY do a thing where they cut back and forth between Atlas and Vacuoduring the Atlas Trilogy. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did since they didcut back and forth between Mistral, Atlas, Vale/Patch and Menagerie between V4and V5.

Then again…this was mostly due to our mainfour girls being separated and in different locations. I mean in V6, the storydid take it’s time to hone in on our villains so perhaps we will get to Emeraldand Mercury’s story continued with Hazel going forward.

Like while the heroes are settled into Atlas,the story could occasionally cut to scenes in Vacuo where Emerald and Mercuryare with Hazel on pursuit for Shade Academy. And along the way, they can crosspaths with Vacuo heroes like Team SSSN and Team CFVY. That could be cool.

I’d actually think Emerald going to Vacuo wouldbe pretty great given her character inspiration. Isn’t Emerald not inspired byAladdin? Vacuo is technically the Agrabah of Remnant so…Emerald will be in herelement. Literally. In the desert among thieves and pickpockets like herself. Anyways,that’s my theory for now. I could be very much wrong about all of this but weshall see.

~LittleMissSquiggles(2019)