I remember back in ancient times when the first trailers of RWBY were just coming out and online forums exploded with fan theories on the 4 main girls. All the talk of the stoic, bad-ass Red, the loveable, flirtatious bounty hunter Yellow, what it meant that there were White’s symbol on the crates in Black’s trailer. How the general consensus was that White was likely to be the cool and collected one, holding the other members of her team together and valuing friendships and connections above all else.
Of course, then the show actually came out and man were we in for a culture shock, most particularly with our adorkable Ruby and short-tempered, fiercely independent Weiss. It had seemed that our assessments were nearly all off for these two, Weiss in particular.
Weiss, for all that she’s done in the past to push others away and to create an unapproachable front, is incredibly dependent on her team. More so I think than any of the rest of them and I don’t just mean how she has shone in Volume 5 for being emotionally supportive and the resident hug monster (though I’m personally in love with it).
In fact, we have evidence of this theme for her leading all the way back to volume 1. In the Emerald Forest, Weiss is the one who recognizes that, her own frustrations aside, building an understanding between her and Ruby about the importance of working together, extending a hand to soothe Ruby’s recklessness, took precedence. While her frustrations do take over once more at the perceived slight of not being made leader, she does actively seek reconciliation once her perception on the matter has changed. When Blake was struggling later on in the volume, Weiss was the first to call attention to it and demand that they approach whatever is causing her distress as a team.
She continues to stress this philosophy into the second Volume where she states that while she didn’t particularly care what they did on their last day of break, she wanted them to do it together.
Another thing that fantastically matches this theme of being contrary to ones outward appearance is Weiss’s weapon and fighting style.
Weiss uses a rapier, a dueling weapon that would give one the impression that she excels on her own and relishes in independent combat, but this couldn’t be any further from the truth. Weiss struggles on her own, a fact that was heavily exaggerated in her fight against Vernal, but not exclusive to it. I’d like you to take a moment and ask yourself something:
Can you name one duel that Weiss won on her own?
Yes, she’s fine against Grimm for the most part, though even in those fights you can see her struggling (the knight in her trailer, the warthog, the lancer queen), but what about against other people, the style of combat that her weapon is designed for?
Weiss vs. the White Fang Lieutenant
Arguably her strongest duel in the series, she puts up a good fight though ends up overcome when her time dilution backfires on her.
Even while possessing the mobility to avoid his attacks if implemented correctly, she gets upstaged and is forced to make a sacrifice play in a desperate attempt to take him out with her, failing that as well.
This was, by far, her most convincing loss. Many people cite how odd and off her game she seemed but I believe that there’s something more to it, and not just that Weiss genuinely isn’t good at 1v1.
While it can easily be argued that Weiss’s struggling is directly proportional to the increasing skill gap between her and her opponents (from a faceless character with a chainsaw to a huntsman in training, to a fully trained bandit warrior) something else to be noticed is that with each battle her number of allies in the surrounding area also increases (alone in the train car, Yang in the vicinity, a room full of people). Add in to this the fact that while in a team fight, when given direction, Weiss is a fantastic fighter, and I think its easy enough to make the claim that in these later fights Weiss is distracted. Perhaps, Weiss is too busy trying to keep track of her teammates (Yang’s constant shouting in the arena, the numerous fights going on around her) to keep her focus on what she’s supposed to be doing in the moment, on her environmental awareness and her opponent.
Weiss is an excellent supportive fighter. In a team fight she regularly buffs her allies, sets up plays both with her glyphs and dust and provides a level of flexibility and versatility for her teammates that no one else can. When she fights together with someone, she is a force to be reckoned with and even down to her demeanor she’s more at ease knowing that she can both depend on those around her and be depended on. Even her summoning reflects this. Before she mastered its use, both times it showed up (The knight’s sword blocking the paladin, the warthog at the party) it did so in defense of someone else (protecting Velvet and in the wake of righteous defensiveness for the lives lost at Beacon).
What this incredibly long post is saying is that Weiss loves her friends, Weiss feels deeply protective of them and even while she may come across as ‘cold’ she is, and always has been the true support of team RWBY.
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