As someone who is both an older sister and raised their younger sibling, let me tell you why this scene was so good
It would be so easy to misinterpret Yang’s protectiveness over Blake here, but that’s not what’s happening. We’ve always seen Ruby as happy-go-lucky, follow-your-heart and do-the-right-thing, and it’s easy to forget that Yang raised Ruby, and the implied subtext there is that it *wasn’t* always sunshine and rainbows.
Yes, Yang is protective over her newfound relationship. Yes, she’ll maybe feel a little wounded that her sister is lashing out. But what we see here is Yang shifting ever so subtly into mother-mode. Yang knows this isn’t about Blake, or her and Blake’s relationship, she’s stepping in front of Blake to protect her before Ruby can say or do something she regrets. In essence, protecting both of them and trying to control the situation from escalating. Yang is stepping in front because she can take it, she’s GIVING her someone to yell at, because god knows she’s probably had to, at some point, take some lip in the past while the others have only ever known her as a strong, positive leader. She doesn’t shout at Ruby, she’s calm, lets her get it out and just looks sternly with a simple “Hey!” as in, ‘hey, that’s enough now’.
Yang has expressed concern, and is concerned, but this is 100% Yang shifting into parent mode. This is brilliant because earlier in the episode and even last episode we’ve seen examples of Yang’s ‘concerned big sister’ side which is soft and supportive. There’s no malice in Yang’s expression, and it’s difficult to catch it because we haven’t had the best representations of ‘good mothers’ in the show, especially not ones that have had to chastise their kids at some point, but you can bet your ass that this is Yang’s parental mode stepping in to bring calm and stability to a chaotic situation. And that doesn’t always present as ‘let’s hug this out’, sometimes it’s stern, tough love and recognising that the younger one isn’t in the space to receive comfort, so the best you can do for them is diffuse the situation and be an authoritative voice of reason because she recognises her sister’s fragile mental state.
This is without going into how amazing Ruby’s portrayal was. Going after your sister’s new relationship is RAW, and personal, but it’s also what siblings do - they lash out sometimes when they’re under stress. The way Ruby says ‘we’re sOoOo happy for you by the way good for you’ - just SMACKS of younger sibling cutting loose and saying something they don’t mean, which makes Yang’s response all the more realistic for me. She recognises the tone, the almost-petulance and steps in before it can go any further.
It’s so subtle, but it SPOKE to me so massive kudos to Miles Luna and the animators for this. And god bless the clowns that use it as some sort of Anti-Bees discourse - the nuance is entirely lost on you.
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