#user: zweizilla98

[onewomancitadel]

Also @zweizilla98 brought up a great point that the new RVB is getting both an instantaneous digital release of the whole show plus an episodic release, which seems confusing, right? Why both? Audience crossover. Normies do not like watching episodic releases anymore. So they're trying to get people to pull a sponsorship for the whole thing plus draw in the loyal fanbase used to episodic release. This is actually really smart and makes a lot of sense, because it's going to maximise people who want to watch the whole thing at once plus watch it weekly in the regular RVB format.

This reads as a good sign to me although it can register as unintuitive. I think it's a fair compromise between the old model and the new model and hopefully that retains sponsorships. My suspicion that any possibility of RWBY renewal will be related to RVB's success increases.

It's actually good they're trying to draw people into RT as opposed to settling for offplatform with CR, which again I felt was the wrong move.

[onewomancitadel]

Hello again! I've been meaning to ask you this for quite a bit, but what are your thoughts on Cinder and Pyrrha as foils to one another? I've read some interesting discussion about how Cinder and Pyrrha could be interchangeable as Achilles and Hector (essentially Cinder is more accurate to the mythical Achilles while Pyrrha is more akin to Hector). I know your blog is primarily focused on Cinder/Jaune, but Pyrrha and Cinder are two of my favorite characters, and I'd love to hear your thoughts <3

Hi, it's lovely to hear from you.

I discuss Knightfall, yes, but I do discuss Cindemption, and this is related, so I welcome the question. For full disclosure of bias on my part, I like Pyrrha's role in the story, but I've never exactly been a fan of her character, and find the glorification of her character endlessly annoying; I also generally hate Best Girl bait, and don't like characters whose worst problem is being perfect and never being bad.

In Pyrrha's case, she's interesting because the only way for her to suceed was in a sick way to fail; she's interesting because the characters who survive are imperfect. The people who prop her up as the perfect Maiden candidate (gamifying something magical and special) are actually profoundly wrong, and that's part of the tragedy of her death. Ordinarily a character I'd hate, whilst in R/WBY, I think she's great - particularly as, since you open here, she's contrasted with Cinder (who is very imperfect and has worked up from nothing. Evil, sick, irredeemable, broken, cursed).

I'm not sure that you'd love to hear my thoughts though, lol. I don't like the sound of this theory at all.

I don't buy the swapped Hektor and Achilles angle, that doesn't make sense to me. I did consider Cinder as Hektor, but I don't buy Iliad!Achilles as the Achilles we had in R/WBY altogether (as you've seen my post, I think Odyssey is most fitting), and Cinder really doesn't make sense as Hektor any more than a cursory 'main hero of the other side', which doesn't really work. It might as flavour, but I don't think Cinder is literally Achilles or Hektor.

Are you saying more accurate in the sense of temperament? Because Pyrrha fitting Oddysey's Achilles is most damning to me.

I also would really want to know the angle of Achilles/Hektor being swapped. Usually with R/WBY intertextuality there is a thematic thrust to the way other stories are used, and with Pyrrha what I can discern is that it's exploring the more melancholic angle of Achilles and the cost of death (in service to Ozlem), and most importantly to me the idea of a 'good death'.

I hope I'm not being mean about a theory you like, but to be quite frank - since you sent an ask about to me lol - it sounds like the type of thing fan fan theories go for, which is trying to be clever without a direction. It's important to think about what would be the purpose of making the completely Achilles-outfitted character secretly another character, and Cinder actually, truly Achilles. What does that mean?

Really, the questions I'm wondering about Cinder and Pyrrha's narrative roles are what they're servicing to the story in the sense of sacrifice, power, and destiny. The reason I'm so insistent about the non-tragic end of Cinder's story is precisely because the story began with that tragedy she enacted; I don't want to see her worldview validated (that it's kill or be killed all the way down). The seasonal theming of their character interaction (well - the link between Ruby, Pyrrha, and Cinder, and why all three were at the top of the tower) is enough to offer structural satisfaction to me, with linkage to Ozlem. Once you start trying to figure Homer in Cinder and Pyrrha, where does Ruby figure in?

Now, from the perspective of Cinder and Pyrrha narrative foiling, there is certainly such. I just don't think it's from the perspective as Pyrrha as the main character/protagonist, it's from Ruby and Cinder. What I would be wondering is what does Pyrrha's death and ideals mean for them. In this case, Pyrrha's death is the not final answer or protagonistic ideal, but something to be redeemed in the future. This is also why, once again, excluding Ruby means you get a more narrow analysis.

Part of what really gets to me is that Pyrrha was never supposed to be the Fall Maiden - supposed to in the sense of morally right/destiny reasons. The power is complicated because in trying to control it, and to mould the perfect warrior, they've actually already effectively failed. That you get a redemption and reformation of the way the Maiden power is conceived of - through our eyes and Cinder's - is extremely interesting. (That Cinder is an agent of preventing that harm, also with Fria, is very interesting). Do you see where I'm going with this? I don't know where Hektor and Achilles figures in here, unless we're going for the angle that Iliad depicts Trojans sympathetically to our modern tastes and narrative preferences, in which case perhaps we get a shred of that with Cinder as the Byronic heroine of the other side. But I don't know what it's offering to anything explored with these characters beyond that.

This is my problem with analysis such as this because I don't know what I'm learning or being told about what the characters are doing and why. R/WBY does use a lot of intertextuality for flavour purposes (I admit that readily) but I really do not understand this angle of arbitrarily swapping the influences of the characters. It's kind of absurd to me. I guess because Cinder is sometimes angry, and Achilles was famous for his rage?

Then again, in being fairer, I think sometimes the intertextuality as used in R/WBY is at times unclear and people trying to figure out where and why it works (what it's beholden to) means it's ripe for grounds of interpretation and trying to make stuff fit as much as it can. Pyrrha isn't angry, so she can't be Achilles, so I guess she's Hektor, but Cinder is angry, so I guess she's Achilles? I don't understand how the themes of Iliad are really working here, because it's all over the place (Achilles kills Hektor vengefully and spitefully, so this might be part of the reassignment; Cinder is neither vengeful nor particularly spiteful, in fact it's an oddly comforting kill, overall impersonal). Admittedly, I'm hearing this secondhand, so I may be doing diservice to the idea trying to piece it together; that being said, I'm not interested in reading about it any more than I already have here, because it sounds like something I'd fundamentally disagree with the methodology of and don't find the idea interesting.

But this is why I'm interested in figuring out what it's all beholden to. Pulling back from Homer, team JNPR comprises cross-dressing mythic/folkloric figures, which to me is part of the team exploring gendered ideals of behaviour (and going with them or without them). Part of what's interesting is that Pyrrha's masculine self-sacrifice then inspires Jaune's, whose stunt is promptly refuted by Cinder. I don't think Pyrrha's sacrifice is wholly endorsed by the narrative. So rather than just trying to figure Homer in, I want to know exactly why Pyrrha's story is the way it is, and what the ultimate answer is (in Jaune's case, a subsequent story about nonviolence and healing, and refusing suicidal intent). That you've got Jaune linked to Cinder is part of the thematic key here.

In summary, I don't think it's absolute to begin with (Cinder is neither a Hektor nor Achilles, maybe for a brief moment in Pyrrha's story, but only as flavour - she's Rhodopis/Cinderella, and no one has allusions so thematically contradicatory), and the idea of swapping the two doesn't make sense to me at all. I think you can explain their relationship through the autumnal theming and the would-be Maiden and the actual Maiden, and the ideas of life/death in Ozlem (and restoring that pattern). That, to me, is much more serviceable - plus, the overall ideas about sacrifice, power, and destiny. Is Cinder right?

At any rate, I hope that explains my approach - and explains, partly, why I keep to myself, lol. Thank you for your ongoing support with my blog, and I hope my answer is not too disappointing (it probably is). I don't know if it would have been more appropriate to self-censor and try to be more polite, but if you do think this theory is valuable, I'm certainly not stopping you finding it interesting or thinking about it. I'm not sure that I'd want to discuss it any more, though. For what it's worth, if someone who propagated the theory reads this post (or, additionally, you resonate with it), and I represented your assertions unfairly, I apologise but I find this angle of analysis fundamentally uninteresting, so I recommend making a vague, passive-aggressive post about me instead. It's what I do, trust me.

The bit I think a lot of fantheories miss out on is what's most economic and functional from the storytelling perspective.

The damning thing - the most damning - is that this idea is too fucking confusing.

It's why I like more simplistic structural ideas (and why I like Jung/monomythic storytelling/Ozlem) that are functional to the storyteller and are an interesting way to tell a story, looking at the goings-on under the bonnet. I understand that to some people my perspective is potentially more complicated or 'reading into things', but if anything I'm more interested in getting to the thematic, purposeful heart of something. I might be wrong, but I am trying.

[onewomancitadel]

Hiii

It has been a bit lol

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but given your focus on Jungian analysis towards RWBY, what's your take on the supposed origin of the Brother Gods in the Fairy Tales book? Of how Light and Dark were one dragon that split itself in twain, and neither could agree on who was the original. It comes off as a quite literal variation of the Shadow or anima/animus taken form...

I mean clearly the whole Light vs Dark conflict is continued in the form of the Ozlem divorce proceedings, and then further down into Ruby and Cinder and co. The obvious solution here would be the union of this new variation of Light and Dark (aka Ruby/Jaune and Cinder) together to settle the cycle of conflict once and for all.

But there's the question of whether the Brothers reuniting as one is in the cards at all to begin with. Or perhaps they themselves are meant to be the final obstacle to overcome by the newest iteration of Light/Dark in whatever form that may be.

I apologize if this is all a bit incoherent it's very late but I've had this sitting in my head for half the week and needed to get it out there

Also I hope you've been alright this Thanksgiving season <3

My reply to this is a little late, but monomythically speaking the world began as the cosmic androgyne egg, and then broke open.

I was thinking about this in relation to the moon (the moon as a cosmic egg is pretty appropriate) and the representation of the split of the world through the split of the moon (the brother destroys it), and from that comes the split of Ozma and Salem (animus and anima of humanity, Ozma is pitted to fight Salem eternally, and is a quest he keeps secret) and the Faunus emerging altogether (the archetypal Shadow of humanity). This physical split representing a metaphysical one makes sense. The goal is to return to the unified forms.

Neither is 'first', both are equal. Everyone was one, and then it was two. The conflict of the world is rooted in this separation. But it's a false binary, that's the point.

So the brothers as an expression of that makes sense. How can one of them possibly be first? Isn't it fitting that they're disputing something metaphysically silly? I think it's probably quite telling that they refuse to empathise with their human supplicants, because they refuse to confront what they really are themselves... but I have a different theory about that I'm expanding in my fanfic.

There's obviously a falsehood about them to be vanquished, and yes, I ultimately think sympathising with Salem means you need to solve the Brother Gods dilemma. Also, there's probably 'more' to the story that we're missing which might be revealed yet. The fairytale is a slim bit of the picture.

Of course, it's interesting how you can see this reflected through the rest of the story, even Ruby and Cinder as lunar twins.

No need to apologise for incoherency at all. It's a delight to hear from you, I apologise for the lateness of my response.

[onewomancitadel]

Heyo, I just wanted to stop by and say how much I really do appreciate you and your blog! I really enjoy reading your analyses and hearing your take on certain subjects from various fandoms (especially RWBY lol), especially when you analyze it from a Jungian perspective. It's very unique I feel from other blogs out there, at least from the ones I follow/see.

And while I'm not the biggest Knightfall shipper out there (although I do see the appeal in it and find it cute in many regards), I like reading your various little essays and analyses about them because, well, I find them extremely interesting and it's always fun to view texts, whether they be books, movies, or television shows, from an alternative perspective.

Also, it's incredibly cathartic to see other people love Cinder Fall and see her for how complex and layered she really is as a character. Way too many people view her in such simple, one-note terms when it's really a disservice to both her and the story that's being told with her.

Keep up the good work! And I hope you have a blessed day

Omg... thank you for this ask T_T I hope you don't mind me posting it publically, I'll lose it otherwise. This is very sweet of you and thank you for stopping by. I do see you in my notes and it always brings me joy!

I'm so glad we both have that perspective on Cinder and I'm very happy they're relatable to you. That's really important to have, because for me I know the blogs that made a huge impact on me and made it more comfortable for me to post about the stuff I enjoy lol

I'm also interested in the fact my Jung posts are interesting; mostly because I think they must come off nonsensically, but also because I'm aware there is at least one other poster in the fandom who has discussed Jungian storytelling in the context of R/WBY. I have major disagreements with them though so I mostly keep to myself on that front. (I just wanted to mention that because I'm not the only one, and it would be unfair of me to not say so).

I also had someone once say about me that I read into stuff too much and I've never once stopped thinking about that comment, so hearing that the thinking-too-much topic is actually worthwhile does make me feel a lot better.

With that being said, is your icon Mj. Motoko Kusanagi? Because Ghost in the Shell (1995) - one of my favourite films - introduced me to Jungian storytelling, funnily enough. (It's actually quite relevant in the context of RWBY, because there is an anime tradition of using Jung).

Later, Reylo was told with Jungian storytelling in The Last Jedi, and then I ended up here. (o:

And while I'm not the biggest Knightfall shipper out there (although I do see the appeal in it and find it cute in many regards), I like reading your various little essays and analyses about them because, well, I find them extremely interesting and it's always fun to view texts, whether they be books, movies, or television shows, from an alternative perspective.

Thank you for reading my Knightfall posts, and I agree, a different perspective can be invigorating! I also make sure to tag in a way such that if you are a Cinder-redemption fan, you can work around my Knightfall tags by blocking the tags - but I also sort of figure in that case, I generally tag Cindemption for Cindemption posts, and you can just follow the public tag instead... but I also discuss Cinder's redemption through a perspective which emphasises the romance, so it's still something that's naturally going to be there.

I think someone may have even sent an ask before about whether romance is necessary or not and what a non-romantic redemption arc might look like... I feel like I've discussed that topic before. For me, it's difficult to read redemption independent of character desires and interaction; it's not really something that happens disparate to that, so my answer is going to be heavily biased towards my given interpretation, lol.

For the purposes of my own little interests, I do like hearing from Knightfall fans, Jaune fans, Cinder fans, etc., and seeing where they crossover and where they don't. So thank you. :D

Also, it's incredibly cathartic to see other people love Cinder Fall and see her for how complex and layered she really is as a character. Way too many people view her in such simple, one-note terms when it's really a disservice to both her and the story that's being told with her.

We love being right. (:

There are definitely other people who view her through a similar lens, but I mostly keep my blog here just to whatever I'm thinking about unless I come across a specific post I agree with in my fandom trawls. I can say off the top of my head that @habitual-shrimp shares a similar perspective on Byronic heroine Cinder and she's generally very thoughtful about Cinder (we have had a few good back and forths). I also know strqyr is a really big Cinder blog who appreciates Cinder, but I do have some departures in interpretation - still, a nice positive source. @misstrashchan also wrote the first post I recall that references the V6 scene which sets up Ruby purifying Cinder with her silver eyes, and is also a Knightfall shipper, but Rosegarden is more the focus on misstrashchan's blog. I also know a few others who are sympathetic to Cinder, but you may already otherwise follow them.

As I've remarked in the past, the Tumblr fandom is much more positive in regards to Cinder, but positive is not necessarily the same as being obsessively devoted to writing posts about her redemption. (:

I think there's an interesting thing with characters like Cinder (especially of the Byronic hero tradition lol) is that sort of what you see is what you get. To me that's thematically moving, because I sort of think that's also, in part, the whole point of her character (and, er, a major thematic focus in RWBY, what with the eyes and all).

This is probably why I am often attracted to polarising characters, and what I often find interesting about polarising characters is that how to choose to interpret, or how you choose to look at them, or what you expect, or what you are narratively primed to expect, completely transforms that character. In the context of Cinder, it's what makes Knightfall thrilling, and makes her redemption thrilling. It's what makes the curious way we are told her backstory - revealed only to us - so thrilling.

That use of perspective is always going to excite me. It's also what makes me less harsh on non-Cinder fans, or people who don't think she's complicated, because in part, they're what make her so interesting, and what makes being a Cinder fan interesting. I can't make other people see what I see, but trying to bridge that, in some way, is rather fun.

What I really like about Knightfall is that you get that audience- and character-effect in real-time. Jaune is set-up to be her worst enemy (and carries the wound the audience does of Pyrrha's death), so you get the most heightened effect in both of their characters: she's his worst enemy, he's a Huntsman trying to start shit with her.

Anyway, I do want to sincerely say thank you! It means a lot to me, truly, and whilst I do whinge and moan on my blog quite often, I am very thankful for lovely people like you who stop by. (:

Also, feel free to send asks about Cinder (even by anon) if you feel like it, my inbox is always open. (:

I also realise the length of my ask reply here is rather long; I expect that you know what to expect by now. Hope you have a lovely day too! <3 <3 <3

[onewomancitadel]

@zweizilla89, I saw your reblog reply from this ask/response about Cinder and I wanted to say you have immaculate taste. Major is one of my favourite characters ever as well. I had the privilege of first seeing the film of Ghost in the Shell at a rescreening in cinema, which was a wonderful and formative experience. Totally worth it. I don't know where you're located but you should keep an eye on independent cinemas near you because I've seen it rescreened a few times since.

SAC is interesting because of its post-cyberpunk tone and tonally it's the most similar to my cyberpunk monster romance storynovelthing (I don't want to sound full of myself saying it's a novel lol). In the film though, the complicated/ambiguous relationship between Major and the Puppet Master was very influential for me as well lol.

I tried searching for the first video and blogpost I watched/read about Jungian storytelling in GITS but it seems to be gone now. (It was from 2015 I think). I've done some sleuthing via websearch but again, I can't find anything about it. I've decided I'm going to rewatch GITS and write a post about it once I have updated The Distance Which Fools the Skimming Eye. (:

[onewomancitadel]

So I saw your "thirsting in the desert for Evil Girl Pussy" meme and I just remembered that I had made this for a server several months ago. And I figured you'd get a kick out of it lol

Correction: Fall Maiden pussy makes him act wise.

[onewomancitadel]

@zweizilla98 said:

See, I've literally been begging on hands and knees for ponytail!Jaune for ages and evidently my prayers seemed to have been answered lol. My only hope is that if/when Jaune leaves the Ever After and goes back to normal that he at least keeps it around instead of the weird banana hairdo. Or at least if his hair does tragically regress to it's previous state, he takes cues of wanting to grow it out again because it's sexy af

Hahah it's an in-joke with Skimming Eye (my fic) readers because of reasons (he gets a ponytail. It's a whole plot/romance-related thing). 200k word fic to justify making Jaune pretty

Suffice it to say, I do agree with you.

I'm incredibly weirded out by the ponytail.

[onewomancitadel]

The set-up is there on many fronts, which is why it's so suspicious. Were it that we were only working allusion-level (Persephone) and practically (the portals, also related to Persephone in some sense) I'd probably dismiss it - because it needs to be thematically, emotionally likely too. That we have the direct set-up with 'no one coming' and the heroes being the ones who need saving (and the Rusted Knight especially) is quite telling, and what leaves the door open for it right now, even with the recent episode. (Plus the theme of mothers. Anyway, see above).

I do think it's a major missed opportunity if it doesn't eventuate; that it's character-grounded and not merely hitting a checklist of things they need to do to 'get out' is what makes it so magical, I think. I don't even know if there's going to be some sort of transdimensional communication ('There's no place like home') that contacts Raven or if we do actually get the cold-call of Raven turning up mid-redemption arc (cue flashbacks to what's happened in the real world), but there are a few ways it could probably work. I'm mostly gesturing at why it makes sense to happen, but the how is still a little ambiguous.

When it comes to the recent episode, I don't think anything necessarily refutes it, actually; if anything it only proves my theory correct that the Tree is not the way out. It's a Tree of Death and uses Tree of Life imagery in an inverted way, likely because - and this is really something I overlooked - Ever After is an illusory world, so its symbolic system is a little corrupt (this does go with what I said in the original post, oddly enough). That and they just felt like being mean.

So, we've run out of options: the Tree is not the way out (the implied moral angst there of sacrifice to return might be explored though); Jaune has been labouring for decades by himself with no hope and no way out, despite the fact he seems to know everything; Ruby is at an all-time low...

Meanwhile Yang and Blake are doing pretty well, all things considered. So what do you give Yang to do in the narrative? Full reconciliation with her mother, one supposes, and all the drama that entails - including Summer.

You know what's so funny... I had always wondered if we'd get a reprisal of this line:

It would be interesting if we did, especially now.

So it seems like a perversely likely possibility on so many fronts. It makes sense especially for the role that redemption serves in the story as something fundamentally transformational, and something that manages to save the day by the skin of its teeth (e.g. Emerald, Hazel, Winter).

Raven's role this volume

My most significant prediction before watching Volume 9 - which I speculated shortly after V8 ended - was that Raven would play a role in retrieving the cast from the underworld. I haven't read any other speculative posts, so this is coming from a place of ignorance as to whether other people have also speculated this. I'm mostly writing this here for myself.

Nevertheless: I still maintain this belief.

The focus so far has been on getting to the Tree of Life because that seems to be 'the way out'. First of all this is interesting because it seems like one of those futile sorts of goals - the real goal is the journey of interiority. They're focussed on a material destination. I also think the implication that there is a 'way out' properly is interesting because Ambrosius is so specific about not falling, to the point that it must be futile to focus on this one specific goal (and, well, as we know from The Girl Who Fell Through the World, it seems like the journey matters more there too).

In a broader sense this is true of the Ozlem conflict, in that Ozma has been so focussed on fighting Salem that he's forgotten why, or if there's any meaning to be found in that. Very often in fabulistic storytelling, the thing you think you were meant to do is not really tied to what you really need to do.

Take note that the Tree of Life is also conflated with the Tree of Knowledge (mythemically/symbolically these are related anyway), from which Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Obviously this is related to the fall of humanity and original sin, and you can quite clearly draw analogue with Salem and Ozma as the Adam and Eve of Remnant, but the fact we have a Tree of Knowledge when the Spring Maiden's Relic is the Lamp is, well, quite telling and perhaps meant to indicate something symbolically. The underworld, here the Special World of Ever After, is where you leave with a forbidden object - it's intentionally a transgressive journey, it crosses literal physical boundaries - and quite often that looks like knowledge.

It's possible there is perhaps a comic reverse in that the Tree of Knowledge is what's sought, when the actual guardian of Knowledge is what gets them out.

But thematically we also have the focus on mothers with Summer.

Summer is the forbidden subject - forbidden insofar as the actual truth of her is concealed, where she went and what she really ended up doing and becoming. The untouched idea of her is what can be approached, and it's what constructs Ruby's identity as a Huntress. I still maintain that Raven knows something more to do with Summer and the perfect reintroduction of her to the story is... now. This volume or the next at least. But just the theme of mothers alone is enough to make me start thinking about when the Mother of the maiden-mother-crone triple goddess will figure again into the story.

Deeper, I think what's so exciting about it is that the exit, the anabasis, the ascent, is perhaps actually predicated upon the heroes being retrieved. To go you are taken, to see you close your eyes, to hear you stop listening, to go forwards you go backwards, to go up you go down. Emotionally it is a reconcilation with Raven - or the prospect of one - it is a return that is also an exit. It also means it will hurt, and leaving will mean having to confront these feelings... and accept her help.

The heroes need saving! That's the emotional conceit! Ruby is not alone! Consider that she feels so desperately abandoned after the Fall of Atlas. Consider that she thinks no one came. Consider that Jaune has been alone for who knows how long and needs saving. Consider that they all need saving. They are the ones stuck in the underworld (Special World); they're the ones to be collected. As an aside, you might say that it's not an underworld, but for what it's doing in the story it is - and the retrieval would be unilaterally a positive one in this case, as opposed to a place where you should go and stay (the balance of life/death) e.g. Orpheus and Eurydice. It does function as a place of rebirth though!

All of the Maidens are Death and the Maiden themed. Mythically, this speculation works from the perspective that Raven is Persephone (Spring Maiden - Persephone was simply sometimes known as Kórē, 'maiden' - who passes between worlds; split spring/chthonic (a murder of ravens) iconography; meaningful ties to her husband and mother realised through transgression of physical spaces i.e. Raven's Semblance). She was sought after by her daughter, a daughter who took on the role of a mother through Ruby (and this is a role that it's obvious she's leaving this volume, which is why Ruby is not attuned to Yang's romance with Blake). This is a reverse of Demeter seeking Persephone when she is taken by Hades. That the mother-daughter relationship could be righted - that Raven comes to retrieve Yang, where she doesn't belong, but it is a world that Raven can practically as well as mythically access - works so well for the established influences as well as reprising the relationship. That it threads into the narrative and emotional arcs of the characters makes a lot of sense to me.

In terms of practical narrative possibility, what Raven retrieving them means is that it will serve as the cold shock of what is eventuating in the 'real world' and how much time has or hasn't passed. It's quite clever in this sense. It's also practical in that as opposed to thinking of a way out, really you are thinking of a way in - and in terms of ultimate purpose of Raven's Semblance, it is pretty cool, admittedly.

I think there's too much potential to ignore at this stage and practical focus on 'get to tree, get out' is something asking to be subverted in a fashion - because the journey to Ever After is not a normal journey. It's a descent, and it's a special one, and it's not like going anywhere else in Remnant. The journey into the inner self had to take place there for a reason, but how do you get out of yourself? This is why I think being saved is meaningful - it's about the heart - and the connections - which Raven's Semblance embodies - and further, the redemption arc Raven is potentially going down cements these ideas, since embedded in the redemption arc is inherently the idea of transformation and metamorphosis (see also: the butterflies). Ruby's mother wound might not be mended yet, but a mother - one of Yang's mothers - redeeming herself and saving them is ummm beautiful and now I'm crying. Thanks! 🥰🥰🥰

[onewomancitadel]

@zweizilla98 said:

Woodcutter Summer my beloved

Yes, I envisioned it as an axe because of Red Riding Hood (the Huntsman), and tangentially Scarlet Robe in the original Fable, who is the main character's missing Hero mother, who also has a very large axe. She also appears in the main story old and tormented, so it's not precisely the usual dead mother trope.

I have paused it to quickly speculate if that is Summer Rose's weapon and we're going to see if I'm right.

[onewomancitadel]

@zweizilla98 said:

We do thankfully have one episode left, so we could hypothetically get it at the eleventh hour but…yeah I'm kinda in the same boat as you. I've been on the "Raven will come to rescue them" train since V8 ended and, at the risk of being that kind of fan who clings too tightly to their fan theories, if it doesn't pan out it will be such a wasted opportunity imo. Everything seemed to be in-place for Raven to come back here. But if she's not coming back now…then when??

Oh no, I think the eleventh hour was always the perfect set-up for Raven (when you think no one is coming...), it's just a matter of the fact that they've glimpsed the door in sight. Technically speaking the only thing in between them is the practical foot forward, and it speaks to a much less interesting relationship between the character goals I've outlined here and the practical goals.

The thing I was trying to draw out here with the Curious Cat is that the Curious Cat is impeded from exiting. There's the idea that no, this isn't the way set forth right in front of us. Jaune is gone, and Ruby too. So what is the real exit? What's the final resolution with the Curious Cat? Because there's too much Ozlem business there to be discarded.

Really the critical thing here for me is to what extent the intertextual allusions are used, and why. Part of the Raven anabasis theory hinges on her Persephone-ness and this was the angle I majorly leant on freshly post-V8 finale. Now it works on many more levels.

I want to know this, so I can understand how much I should be reading into other characters - like, say, Cinder. It's really critical to me that the only romantic foreshadowing for Jaune's character (Weiss has many different Huntsmen, he's neither a Patroclus nor a Briseis) is in relation to Cinder (he's Sappho's (Sapphron's) brother). Meanwhile Blake has her Beauty, Oscar has the Little Prince's rose... Ren/Nora is a bit of a tougher nut, but in some ways I wonder if the anime trope itself is the bit being referenced (like, Sasuke/Sakura?)... Emerald/Mercury themselves have the alchemical relation of Mercury and the Emerald Tablet, so what gives?

There are bigger things at stake here for me than just Raven's arrival, but I also feel Raven's reintegration to be thematically critical. I feel it in a 'this would be fucking awesome' way, especially for a fight that fans are likely clamouring for, but also in a 'this would be emotionally, thematically, textually touching, thrilling, surprising, and the only possible way it could go, and suggestive of thoughtful storytelling' way. Again: fucking awesome.

The thing is that from a basic storytelling perspective, if I have characters in a situation with one really basic goal (get to the Tree, get out through a physical exit) and that basic goal takes place in an illusory metaphyiscal magical world where the interior journey into the soul manifests physically, then there is an inverse relation between that simplistic final goal of what you ought to do (find the Tree, leave) to that of who you think you're meant to be, and where you should be going, and how you've failed. If you fail to reach the Tree, it's because you're failing in trying to be someone you're not. If you misunderstand the nature of the Tree or you're frightful of it, or you've got a different side to the story, that says things about you personally.

If the final answer is that who you think you're supposed to be is actually hurting you, then that simplistic final goal needs to change. You can't leave through the Tree, because you can't be that person because it's hurting you. You can't just step through a simple doorway and have things go back to normal. It's going to hurt, but it's going to be better this way.

This is why I think it's interesting they got to the door, they saw the Curious Cat unable to leave through it (this idea is seeded), but they also can't leave without Ruby (and now Jaune); they've been stopped in their tracks for a very necessary reason. Jaune and Ruby have to change.

So if they have to change, is the final goal reoriented? Is it possible to leave through that door? If it's as simple as that - could they just go ahead without Jaune and Ruby? They might end up finding their way back anyway. Is that acceptance? Is that what all that rotten dialogue is about?

I still think that this has potential time to develop, but I guess I'm pretty disappointed my Raven anabasis theory might not eventuate, because it realises that character relationship to the metaphysical. The failed hero! The bad mother! The coward who finally answers the call! The Spring Maiden stopping to smell the roses! The way out was not the one you thought it was. The people whom you thought weren't coming to rescue you actually were. You don't have to play the hero this time. Let someone help. The way out is answering a deep character wound, a deep character question. You thought you were supposed to this way, do this, be this other person - but you don't. Raven symbolically best represents this idea. The way out is character-motivated as it answers a character-based question.

That it has the potential to not be that fundamentally thoughtful - and further to that, completely miss the opportunity to use Raven in the most interesting way possible and reintegrate her at the height of drama in the story - is... making me really sad.

[onewomancitadel]

@zweizilla98 said:

Oh man that's awful to hear…hopefully things will work out. idk if it requires having to buy a new laptop or if there's some other method that's slightly more feasible, but regardless I wish you the best <3

Thank you. I have had a good cry about it and I'll pick myself back up. It seems like most of my issues have resolved - touch wood. It's the failure of the harddrive getting to me. It's otherwise too complicated to explain and I don't want to dump it on Tumblr, it's just too much overall lol.

The thing really getting to me right now is my fic update schedule, which has been affected by this, but I'll spare you that. Hope you are doing well. (:

I am so completely done with all of my laptop issues lol. I don't want to spend a post whining about it but fic writing is not going well and my files didn't back up properly so guess what happened to my Word documents from the past two months

I'm not really sure what to do and I want to cry lol

[onewomancitadel]

@zweizilla98 said:

Well if Weiss is going to have a special encounter with the Summer Maiden at some point…well I feel that lends further credence to Ilia eventually becoming the Summer Maiden. I feel there would quite a bit to unpack there between the two…

I actually had two thoughts about this and you're quite right to point out one of them (my personal theory that Ilia will be the endgame Summer Maiden).

My first thought would be that for another Evil Queen, we would potentially need another evil Summer Maiden - so not Ilia at present, who could be someone who runs into trouble with Weiss.

On the other hand, because we got Ilia's redemption arc back in V5, and we just had Winter's, the next Evil Queen being fittingly not-so-evil anymore makes more sense. The question would be whether Weiss has her Ilia interaction/storyline before Ilia is a Maiden - therefore a type of Queen foreshadowing - or whether it occurs after.

If anything, this is satisfying from the perspective that we know who our endgame Maidens our based on who our Evil Queens are.

The way I see it is that the Maidens join the heroes in the order that the Maidens join the old man in the story. So Winter is first, then spring, then summer, and finally autumn. So Winter -> Raven -> Ilia makes sense to me, then Cinder.

If Ilia is our endgame Maiden, once again, they could be fluid in how it links to Weiss, but given the fact that Ilia's parents were killed in that SDC mine they explore in V7 means we certainly have unfinished business there.

I am very, very satisfied it's only more reasonable argument for Ilia as Summer Maiden, so thank you for letting me expand. I'm unsure as to how reasonable my argument for that comes across, especially since I kept it tight-lipped until it came to the fore in my ~very own fanfic~, and considering I've seen Emerald or Nora theories around, I imagine I sound a bit crazy. Lol. I need a tag for it!

I also just want to note that it's interesting that all the Evil Queens have or will have redemption arcs and how that ties to the Maiden powers is interesting as well. There is actually reason (not necessarily justified, but not 'jealous of her beauty' type stuff) for the Evil Queens to target Weiss, who she, herself, is sort of on a soft-redemptive path.

Reading canon from another perspective to learn something new

Sorry I'm having a really bad week and so I'm filling my cotton-fluff brain with thoughts about how to read Jaune/Weiss as canon and what would be the precipitator of that definitely being canon.

Basically the only key you need is the fact he had a crush on her and there are a lot of stories where eventually the girl comes around to it once he's given it up, that's then how you read every other canon interaction as significant. Jaune killing Penny wasn't at Penny's beheest, it was to protect Weiss (despite the fact he would have healed Penny therefore 'wasting' time); Jaune saving Weiss was specifically motivated by romantic intent (couldn't save Pyrrha but could save Weiss); Jaune helping Weiss at any point is because romance; er, I'm not really sensing anything here on Weiss' side but let's just go with it. Obviously going to the movies with Oscar as a third wheel was our canonical confirmation of the ship.

Also because Jaune saved Weiss like in Snow White when the Huntsman carrying her glass coffin dislodges the poison apple from her throat, that is romantic foreshadowing. That's pretty much the only one I can take seriously but it is unfortunately complicated by the fact that she already has a Huntsman Summon that has saved her, and in addition to that she has another Huntsman who saves her: Yang.

Because this is my actual greater theory about the Evil Queens in Weiss' story:

The Maidens are Queens, in chess and in their allusions. Raven is a bandit queen, so the most literal - she may also be Persephone, the Queen of Death (she can travel between worlds because she loves people, alike to Demeter getting Persephone back because she loves her daughter, is the most obvious one; that and Spring); Cinder's callsign is a Queen chesspiece, and one version of Rhodopis marries the king of Egypt, etc.; Winter is the Snow Queen (and the little boy) who needs to cry to feel emotions again and become herself.

Weiss has been targeted by two of those Queens and intimately linked to another (her big sister!). In many versions of Snow White, the Evil Queen doesn't target Snow White the once, but in this case we get a different queen every time. Taken as hostage and ransomed by Raven, and then speared by Cinder (with the most obvious Snow White allusion feat. Jaune). So there isn't one Evil Queen in Weiss' story, there are actually multiple. Jaune saved her from Cinder, and Yang saved her from Raven, and Winter - well, that one is a bit more complicated, but I would say Penny saved Weiss from Winter, in a way - at least, the Snow Queen cried the shard of ice out of her eye.

At any rate, Winter is able to return to Weiss and help her, so this is the first instance of an Evil Queen changing her allegiance.

Basically, the point I'm trying to make is that I don't think that the Evil Queen and the Huntsmen have romantic foreshadowing in Weiss' story, at least at this stage (made more interesting by the fact that Weiss in general doesn't have a lot of romantic foreshadowing compared to a lot of characters). She also has her own Huntsman who is a Geist she defeated in a task set by her father that she Summons, so there is a bit of the 'princess is her own defender' they're doing with her.

So in this case I expect Weiss to have some sort of incident with a Summer Maiden, though it may not look exactly like her being targeted by her, or maybe we get some sort of subversion. I also think that given Raven might play a role in getting them out from Ever After, or being connected to it in some way, maybe we'll get more with the Evil Queens and Weiss.

[onewomancitadel]

@zweizilla98 said:

Holy shit you're an RvB fan???

That is incredibly based

Same hat! I grew up watching it with my brother before I got terminally into it and he moved on. Actually my very first fanfic I ever wrote and posted on LiveJournal when I was too young to be on there was a Grimmons fanfic. Really comes full circle. They see me rolling and they are hating.

I can't find the first post I made about this so I guess you all have to suffer with another one. This bloke right here had a living redemption arc written by Miles. Cry moar.

Still baffles and confuses me that of all villains/redemption arcs I have ever been invested in THIS is one of the most compelling and gutsy. Like it's actually sort of weird. You'd think the space wizards could've lived happily ever after with fat Jedi babies.

[onewomancitadel]

@zweizilla98 said:

"#war crimes of eating pussy and being evil" aka the best kind of crimes

I put the funny bits in the tags, always.

This is like 'Kylo Ren needs to be tried for his war crimes' all over again.

[onewomancitadel]

@zweizilla98 said:

I appreciate you taking the time to respond! I probably would have helped to elaborate a bit more but alas asks are very limited in terms of character count so :/

It's my bedtime now, but I thought I'd just take the quick chance to respond: if you want to send longer asks, you need to go to the dashboard view (if you're on browser), not the custom direct link (of onewomancitadel.tumblr.com/ask). I'm assuming that's why you're getting the older, limited ask style. The new ask style is much longer. If you're still getting the limited ask style even on dash view then I'm not sure how to help. Lol.

I don't think a longer explanation would have redeemed the allusion-swap, since I find it fundamentally absurd, if that makes you feel any better? I feel like I'm still getting it wrong lol.

It's fun responding when it's not emotionally painful or someone being mean to me.

At any rate, thank you for your ask and hope you have a nice day. (:

Hello again! I've been meaning to ask you this for quite a bit, but what are your thoughts on Cinder and Pyrrha as foils to one another? I've read some interesting discussion about how Cinder and Pyrrha could be interchangeable as Achilles and Hector (essentially Cinder is more accurate to the mythical Achilles while Pyrrha is more akin to Hector). I know your blog is primarily focused on Cinder/Jaune, but Pyrrha and Cinder are two of my favorite characters, and I'd love to hear your thoughts <3

Hi, it's lovely to hear from you.

I discuss Knightfall, yes, but I do discuss Cindemption, and this is related, so I welcome the question. For full disclosure of bias on my part, I like Pyrrha's role in the story, but I've never exactly been a fan of her character, and find the glorification of her character endlessly annoying; I also generally hate Best Girl bait, and don't like characters whose worst problem is being perfect and never being bad.

In Pyrrha's case, she's interesting because the only way for her to suceed was in a sick way to fail; she's interesting because the characters who survive are imperfect. The people who prop her up as the perfect Maiden candidate (gamifying something magical and special) are actually profoundly wrong, and that's part of the tragedy of her death. Ordinarily a character I'd hate, whilst in R/WBY, I think she's great - particularly as, since you open here, she's contrasted with Cinder (who is very imperfect and has worked up from nothing. Evil, sick, irredeemable, broken, cursed).

I'm not sure that you'd love to hear my thoughts though, lol. I don't like the sound of this theory at all.

I don't buy the swapped Hektor and Achilles angle, that doesn't make sense to me. I did consider Cinder as Hektor, but I don't buy Iliad!Achilles as the Achilles we had in R/WBY altogether (as you've seen my post, I think Odyssey is most fitting), and Cinder really doesn't make sense as Hektor any more than a cursory 'main hero of the other side', which doesn't really work. It might as flavour, but I don't think Cinder is literally Achilles or Hektor.

Are you saying more accurate in the sense of temperament? Because Pyrrha fitting Oddysey's Achilles is most damning to me.

I also would really want to know the angle of Achilles/Hektor being swapped. Usually with R/WBY intertextuality there is a thematic thrust to the way other stories are used, and with Pyrrha what I can discern is that it's exploring the more melancholic angle of Achilles and the cost of death (in service to Ozlem), and most importantly to me the idea of a 'good death'.

I hope I'm not being mean about a theory you like, but to be quite frank - since you sent an ask about to me lol - it sounds like the type of thing fan fan theories go for, which is trying to be clever without a direction. It's important to think about what would be the purpose of making the completely Achilles-outfitted character secretly another character, and Cinder actually, truly Achilles. What does that mean?

Really, the questions I'm wondering about Cinder and Pyrrha's narrative roles are what they're servicing to the story in the sense of sacrifice, power, and destiny. The reason I'm so insistent about the non-tragic end of Cinder's story is precisely because the story began with that tragedy she enacted; I don't want to see her worldview validated (that it's kill or be killed all the way down). The seasonal theming of their character interaction (well - the link between Ruby, Pyrrha, and Cinder, and why all three were at the top of the tower) is enough to offer structural satisfaction to me, with linkage to Ozlem. Once you start trying to figure Homer in Cinder and Pyrrha, where does Ruby figure in?

Now, from the perspective of Cinder and Pyrrha narrative foiling, there is certainly such. I just don't think it's from the perspective as Pyrrha as the main character/protagonist, it's from Ruby and Cinder. What I would be wondering is what does Pyrrha's death and ideals mean for them. In this case, Pyrrha's death is the not final answer or protagonistic ideal, but something to be redeemed in the future. This is also why, once again, excluding Ruby means you get a more narrow analysis.

Part of what really gets to me is that Pyrrha was never supposed to be the Fall Maiden - supposed to in the sense of morally right/destiny reasons. The power is complicated because in trying to control it, and to mould the perfect warrior, they've actually already effectively failed. That you get a redemption and reformation of the way the Maiden power is conceived of - through our eyes and Cinder's - is extremely interesting. (That Cinder is an agent of preventing that harm, also with Fria, is very interesting). Do you see where I'm going with this? I don't know where Hektor and Achilles figures in here, unless we're going for the angle that Iliad depicts Trojans sympathetically to our modern tastes and narrative preferences, in which case perhaps we get a shred of that with Cinder as the Byronic heroine of the other side. But I don't know what it's offering to anything explored with these characters beyond that.

This is my problem with analysis such as this because I don't know what I'm learning or being told about what the characters are doing and why. R/WBY does use a lot of intertextuality for flavour purposes (I admit that readily) but I really do not understand this angle of arbitrarily swapping the influences of the characters. It's kind of absurd to me. I guess because Cinder is sometimes angry, and Achilles was famous for his rage?

Then again, in being fairer, I think sometimes the intertextuality as used in R/WBY is at times unclear and people trying to figure out where and why it works (what it's beholden to) means it's ripe for grounds of interpretation and trying to make stuff fit as much as it can. Pyrrha isn't angry, so she can't be Achilles, so I guess she's Hektor, but Cinder is angry, so I guess she's Achilles? I don't understand how the themes of Iliad are really working here, because it's all over the place (Achilles kills Hektor vengefully and spitefully, so this might be part of the reassignment; Cinder is neither vengeful nor particularly spiteful, in fact it's an oddly comforting kill, overall impersonal). Admittedly, I'm hearing this secondhand, so I may be doing diservice to the idea trying to piece it together; that being said, I'm not interested in reading about it any more than I already have here, because it sounds like something I'd fundamentally disagree with the methodology of and don't find the idea interesting.

But this is why I'm interested in figuring out what it's all beholden to. Pulling back from Homer, team JNPR comprises cross-dressing mythic/folkloric figures, which to me is part of the team exploring gendered ideals of behaviour (and going with them or without them). Part of what's interesting is that Pyrrha's masculine self-sacrifice then inspires Jaune's, whose stunt is promptly refuted by Cinder. I don't think Pyrrha's sacrifice is wholly endorsed by the narrative. So rather than just trying to figure Homer in, I want to know exactly why Pyrrha's story is the way it is, and what the ultimate answer is (in Jaune's case, a subsequent story about nonviolence and healing, and refusing suicidal intent). That you've got Jaune linked to Cinder is part of the thematic key here.

In summary, I don't think it's absolute to begin with (Cinder is neither a Hektor nor Achilles, maybe for a brief moment in Pyrrha's story, but only as flavour - she's Rhodopis/Cinderella, and no one has allusions so thematically contradicatory), and the idea of swapping the two doesn't make sense to me at all. I think you can explain their relationship through the autumnal theming and the would-be Maiden and the actual Maiden, and the ideas of life/death in Ozlem (and restoring that pattern). That, to me, is much more serviceable - plus, the overall ideas about sacrifice, power, and destiny. Is Cinder right?

At any rate, I hope that explains my approach - and explains, partly, why I keep to myself, lol. Thank you for your ongoing support with my blog, and I hope my answer is not too disappointing (it probably is). I don't know if it would have been more appropriate to self-censor and try to be more polite, but if you do think this theory is valuable, I'm certainly not stopping you finding it interesting or thinking about it. I'm not sure that I'd want to discuss it any more, though. For what it's worth, if someone who propagated the theory reads this post (or, additionally, you resonate with it), and I represented your assertions unfairly, I apologise but I find this angle of analysis fundamentally uninteresting, so I recommend making a vague, passive-aggressive post about me instead. It's what I do, trust me.

The bit I think a lot of fantheories miss out on is what's most economic and functional from the storytelling perspective.

The damning thing - the most damning - is that this idea is too fucking confusing.

It's why I like more simplistic structural ideas (and why I like Jung/monomythic storytelling/Ozlem) that are functional to the storyteller and are an interesting way to tell a story, looking at the goings-on under the bonnet. I understand that to some people my perspective is potentially more complicated or 'reading into things', but if anything I'm more interested in getting to the thematic, purposeful heart of something. I might be wrong, but I am trying.