#might to a lil red riding hood one next tbh

[chaikachi]

The Little Prince, The Rose, & The Aviator

AKA We just got confirmation that Oscar's main allusion is in fact The Little Prince so I wanted to gather all evidence that supports it in show thus far.

cross-posted from twitter

A brief summary for those who aren't familiar:

The Little Prince is a story about a young boy that travels to many worlds & meets many people. It is told out of chronological order from the perspective of an airplane pilot that the prince meets close to the end of his journey.

It explores themes around childhood and growing up, love, loss, friendship, loneliness, and hope, among other things. All ideas very prevalent in RWBY.

Part 1: The Little Prince

The first theme I want to touch on is that struggle of trying not to lose yourself as you grow up.

"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again."

Oscar is the youngest of the group, and yet he is one of the characters most often shown trying to reason with the adults in the room.

Yes, we've mainly seen it with Hazel, Ironwood, and Oz... but while the rest of RWBYJNR are also 'just kids', he spends so much energy trying to reason with them and mediate conflicts there as well. All while still being the youngest of the bunch.

Another way this shows itself is in Oscar's resistance to merging with Oz. The merge is a very clear metaphor for how the people you meet and the things you experience can often change you. And how, when you're a kid, it all feels like its completely out of your control.

Speaking of the hoverbike scene, I want to shift to a different part of The Little Prince. The infamous moment with the fox and what it is to be 'tamed'. To be tamed is to create ties with others. To become important to them and for them to be important to you.

When Oscar is having a talk with Oz in v8 about how he finally felt like himself, the person he wanted to be, and felt like he was finally "part of the team"... There is a fox plushie lying on the ground as he passes by.

But we see that Oscar was right to feel this way later on.

Because just as he was "only a little boy like a hundred thousand other little boys" when he first met everyone... he had since been tamed, and tamed his friends in turn. And they fought tooth and nail to bring him back when he was captured by Salem.

Part 2: The Aviator & the Rose

In RWBY, most characters have a main allusion that is central to their arc and then secondary allusions for what roles they fill in relation to other characters. (Ex. Yang's main allusion is Goldilocks, but when thrown into the plot, she also becomes the Beauty to Blake's Beast, just as Blake was once the Beauty to Adam's Beast).

If we apply that metric to other characters here, we know that Ozpin's main allusion is The Wizard of Oz and Ruby is Little Red Riding Hood... so when placed within Oscar's story structure of The Little Prince, they become The Aviator and The (Ruby) Rose, respectively.

The aviator is a man that struggles to hold onto his childlike wonder. He tries, but he lives in a world of grown-ups so it becomes difficult with time. The little prince - much like Oscar with Ozpin - helps him remember some of the things that he's forgotten.

When the little prince meets him, the aviator is grumbly after crash landing his plane in the desert & is trying to fix it before he runs out of water.

Funny then, that when Oscar is crash landing a plane it is Oz that instructs him on how to do it.

When the aviator explains his circumstances, the prince laughs and exclaims that he "fell from the sky too". Which is an interesting tie in to the canon RWBY fairytale mentioned in Before the Fall, The Boy Who Fell From The Sky...

...as well as another fairytale we've seen mentioned in the show proper: The Girl Who Fell Through The World. A tale that was first talked about by Oscar, later expanded upon by Ozpin, and finally lived by Ruby Rose herself. (Yes her team also experienced it but it's very strongly emphasized Ruby and Alyx were paralleling each other in ways the others were not).

One thing about the little prince and the aviator is that by the end of their journey when it's time to say farewell, it's quite clear they've tamed each other as well. So much time spent by the pilot wishing to fix his plane and get out of the desert, but when it's finally time to say farewell, he does not want to go. This is not something we've gotten in show yet, but I'm willing to guess is going to be the basis for when the war is won and Oz is finally set free. Leaving the two of them to finally have to say goodbye.

And I realized I couldn't bear the thought of never hearing that laugh again. For me it was like a spring of resh water in the desert. "Little fellow, I want to hear you laugh again..."

Moving onto the Rose.

In the story, the little prince is enamored by her as soon as he sees her for the first time. As he gets to know her, she is described as many things. Some that fit Ruby well (miraculous, naïve) and some that she subverts (vain, self-centered).

Ruby might not be caught up on physical appearance, but she is convinced that she's the only one in all the world that can do what she has to do. It's a childish way of looking at things, and to believe you can't accept help from others is - in its own way - selfish.

In the book, the rose asks the little prince to tend to her. She's very needy with her demands and while the prince loves her dearly, it is a strained relationship. In RWBY, Oscar sees Ruby wilting very early on and decides to tend to her without waiting for her to ask. Of which we have... SO MANY EXAMPLES AND I DON'T HAVE A HIGH ENOUGH IMAGE LIMIT TO POST THEM ALL SO YOU GET 2.

Not pictured here, but still worthy of note: Oscar mediating when Ruby is being undermined in v8, Oscar talking the responsibility of telling Ironwood the truth in V7, the "food always makes me feel better" / "I made you a casserole because you were sad" scenes. The List Goes On.

Part 3: Other Easter Eggs & Evidence

There are also other fun little pieces that drive home just how much these characters allude to the book as well as the inspiration it's had on the show in general.

The first thing the little prince asks the aviator for is a drawing of a sheep that he can take home with him so that it can eat up the sprouts of baobab trees before they overgrow his entire planet and destroy it (and his rose) in the process...

The tree in the Ever After has maple leaves, but the shape of its trunk is very clearly not a maple. When compared to these illustrations, it seems to have pulled inspiration from baobabs... and what does the tree in the Ever After do?

Its roots consume the rose.

One of the lessons that's brought up repeatedly in the book is that:

"One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”

This is brought up in a few different ways:

The little prince left his rose back home, so when he looks to the night sky, separated from her, he says:

"The stars are beautiful because of a flower you don’t see . . ."

When Ruby is in the Ever After, with no one to tend to her, she is in a town filled with paper stars.

It is brought up again in reference to the desert, which we have a wonderful tie-in now thanks to the animatic shared at RTX recently:

“What makes the desert beautiful,” the little prince said, “is that it hides a well somewhere . . .”

And again by the aviator in reference to the little prince himself.

What makes the little prince special is his loyalty to a flower. Ruby Rose, who inspired Oscar to keep fighting, who reminded him he was brave, and who's mission he has worn on his literal shoulders.

Two other lines in that passage I've highlighted I also want to mention.

"As the little prince was falling asleep, I picked him up in my arms, and started walking again. I was moved. It was as if I was carrying a fragile treasure."

This line about the little prince being a treasure (treasure is an rg song truthers rise up 🙌)

And the emphasis on lamps being symbolic of the Little Prince himself which... we've seen for Oscar A LOT.

"What moves me so deeply about this sleeping little prince is his loyalty to a flower - the image of a rose shining within him like the flame within a lamp, even when he's asleep... (...) Lamps must be protected: A gust of wind can blow them out..."

Also Ruby has been referred to as a "spark" by Oz before and when Oscar is worrying over Ruby at Brunswick farms, Maria tells him to "keep that fire fed" which is exactly what lamp lighters do. Just very deliberate use of that imagery here.

It ALSO ties into earlier in the novel where, among the little prince's many travels meeting plenty of confusing adults he doesn't understand, he encounters a lamplighter. And of all those that confused him, he found he could at least relate to this one and see value in his work.

There is also a matter of how the prince's first appearance is at sunrise:

That he is cited to live on a planet "scarcely bigger than himself" and "being in need of a friend". How we see Oscar very alone on his farm back in Mistral, just like the prince, only tending to his daily chores by himself, we never even see his aunt.

And while there are a few other bits and pieces i'm surely forgetting, the last big one I want to talk about is how both the beginning and end of the book start with a venomous snake.

The aviator shows us a drawing of a boa constrictor eating a wild beast...

...versus Oscar's first appearance coming immediately after he wakes from a nightmare of Tyrian, a venomous scorpion faunus, being sent to capture his rose.

And the story ends with the little prince in a desert getting bit by a venomous snake that sends him back to his rose and away from the aviator... thank goodness RWBY loves to subvert its fairytale origins, amiright?

"(The little prince) fell gently the way a tree falls, there wasn't even a sound..."

tl;dr Oscar is for sure The Little Prince, Ruby has always been his rose, RG canon, Tryian vs. Oscar in the desert real and #GREENLIGHTVOLUME10 SO WE CAN SEE IT HAPPEN ALREADY >:OOOO

Thank you for reading 💕