#blake crit

[saltedsnails]

Sometimes, RWBYCritics does contribute meaningfully. Case in point:

[rwdestuffs]

In most media, the idea between a hero vs. villain where there is a notable wealth and class difference is that it’s often the hero who is from the lower class/income level.

Superman is a farmhand who ended up being a reporter, and his arch rival is Lex Luthor, a rich CEO who has massive xenophobic and darwinist ideals.

Spider-Man is a lower-middle class photographer who struggles to pay rent. His most iconic enemy is Norman Osborn, a CEO of a weapons company that produced a super soldier serum that made him a murderer.

Captain America is, in his own words, “A kid from Brooklyn” and he fights a fascist in charge of an army that has agents everywhere.

Now, when the hero is rich, it’s hard to make a villain for them unless it’s something that’s more of a clash of a greater scope villain or a clash of ideologies.

For example, Batman is a Rich CEO who declared war on crime after crime took his family away, his most iconic foe is the Joker, an insane (sorta) mass murderer who challenges his ideologies on order and his no-kill rule, which Batman has to grapple with as often as he does the Joker. Many of his other foes are merely challenges to his ideology, such as Poison Ivy and Ra’s Al Ghul being challenges to how industrialization can harm the planet, and that it makes it a clash of making industry jobs and manufacturing goods for people vs. saving the planet so that people can survive.

Iron Man is also a Rich CEO whose enemy is often a bunch of other more vile CEOs who manufacture weapons and don’t care whose hands they fall into. Sometimes he fights global terrorists or other people looking to turn his inventions against innocent people. Iron Man often has to grapple with the fact that he’s saving the world from the weapons he himself made, making it less of a fight against an enemy, and more a fight against his past self. Tony is atoning for his sins as a weapons manufacturer.

Now take Blake. Blake falls into the “Rich Hero” category. She may not be a CEO, but she still ultimately came from a rich family (no matter how much her backstory and dialogue in the first three volumes hinted otherwise). Another thing that the “Rich Hero” will often do is clash with a “Rich Villain” to contrast how each uses their money and/or position in the overall fight. Very rarely does a “Rich Hero” clash with a “Poor Villain.” And if the villain is poor, more often than not does the “Rich Hero” then use the points made by the villain to try and gain a new outlook on life.

Was Adam an extremist? Possibly. His final dialogue in Volume 2 indicated that he didn’t care about Faunus casualties during the Breach, and his attitude in the Black Trailer implied that he didn’t really care about civilians at all. A person who is reckless and is willing to hurt bystanders and their own people to get what they want is a legitimately good idea to roll with… That the writers didn’t do. Instead the writers decided that the “right” thing to do was to uphold the status quo and try to obtain equal rights through nonviolent, though explicitly ineffective protests.

And at the end, they got rid of the only member of the WF that was making sense. Blake said “Never fight back because it makes us bad” while Adam was saying “We should always fight because we won’t get anywhere otherwise.”

Sienna was saying “Defend yourselves, your fellow person, and your communities, but don’t actively seek confrontation.” Sienna was basically saying that doing things in such a way that would eventually point out that the fight shouldn’t be Faunus vs. Human, but Rich vs. Poor. Given recent political events, I think it’s safe to say that if a Faunus could have been someone exploiting other Faunus for the sake of profit, that they would easily and rapidly side with the racists.

The racism subplot was more than what the writers could handle, and that can be said until the heat death of the universe, but that isn’t to say that there was something there that could have been said.

In fact, the overall story could have been one of priorities. Do our heroes focus on the looming threat of Salem who is trying to destroy the world in one big cosmic attempt at suicide, or do they try to help the disenfranchised so that there’s a world they’re willing to go back to if they’re able to save it?

The story could have been one where Adam is a rich villain willing to use his position of wealth to get people to throw away their lives for the sake of revenge while Blake could have been one who doesn’t want to sacrifice people.

Blake could have easily been the “Poor Hero” wanting peaceful resolution in the name of her (honestly should have been deceased) parents, while Adam could have been the “Rich Villain” who just wanted to expand his wealth by merely pretending to be on the side of the Faunus.

There was no need for the racism subplot, but if the writers wanted to do something, they should have gotten information from somewhere OTHER than some white karen’s blog about how minorities “should” behave.

The main point of this is that the writers ultimately fucked up by making Blake the princess of Menagerie. This could have easily been a clash of ideals from two people on the same class. Adam, the one who disregards civilians, and Blake, the one who wants to save civilians. Both from the same lifestyle, but with vastly different outlooks. And making Adam be branded is also a massive mistake because there shouldn’t have been any kind of scars like that unless there was some on Blake as well. Put them both through the same ordeals, but come out with different perspectives.

There’s a quote from Justice League Crisis on two Earths that I want to put here that should have summed up the difference between Blake and Adam:

“There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us… You blinked.”

The story could have easily been Adam blinking in the face of oppression, turning into what he sought out to destroy; while Blake looked at it unflinchingly, turning into someone who wanted peace, no matter how hard it was to attain. Two people whose stories aren’t that different, ultimately coming to vastly different conclusions as to what their ideologies are.

Would it had been perfect?- Far from it. This sort of story is always hard, no matter who is writing it.

But would it had been decent, or dare I say… Good?- Probably.

[rwdestuffs]

Okay, I think I have an idea as to how to… salvage the racism arc. Since it’s garbage, I figure that any idea as to how to salvage it would be a decent idea. So I just wanted to put this out there to see how receptive people are to it, feel free to offer criticism about my idea.

Again, keyword: salvage.

The main idea of salvaging it being: Only Blake believes in her own rhetoric. Mostly every other Faunus actually thinks that there is a line that they shouldn’t cross, but it isn’t at “fighting back makes you just as bad.”

The idea being that maybe Blake is afraid of crossing that line because that was how Adam justified his first killing of a human. Blake is afraid of not knowing when to stop. She’s afraid that if she fights back, that she’ll end up like Adam. A human fighting a human is fine to her because she’s under the impression that they would know when to stop. A human fighting a Faunus is fine to her because they would either 1: have a good reason, or 2: be the bad guy and one of her friends can handle it. But to her, a Faunus fighting a human is a pathway to becoming Adam.

So maybe the way to salvage this would be to have her friends reassure her that she won’t become Adam. Because at the end of the day, that’s the main problem that Blake specifically is having. Because Blake openly admits all the way back in Volume 1 that Sienna’s methods worked. So maybe she doesn’t have the full story. Maybe Ghira had a biased view of it when he was telling his daughter about what was going on and that transferred over. Maybe he didn’t bother to mention that there were racists that were trying to kill them when the story of Adam fighting back was told.

I doubt that the writers would be that smart to use the “unreliable narrator” trope like that, but I think that Blake having an idealized view of how to solve the problem due to biases that were instilled (albeit unintentionally) by her parents would be interesting. Maybe some of the people that also fell could provide some insight or a new perspective? Who knows.

But again, I doubt that the writers would be at all smart enough to use that “unreliable narrator” trope, so I doubt that we’ll get anything better than that tired “Capitulating to racists and behaving is the only way to solve racism” rhetoric that they’re perpetuating.

Because I do wholeheartedly believe that the conversation that we should be having is “How much force is too much, and how much is too little?” The conversation absolutely should NOT be “Any amount of force is too much force.”

[rwdestuffs]

On one hand, I’m happy that the writers have dropped the racism subplot because I can’t stand the “if minorities behave better then racism is solved, those who benefited from racism don’t have to fix themselves and aren’t the problem” bullshittery that they perpetuate…

… But by dropping it, Blake’s arc is gone. She was only there to drive that particular plot point, and without it, she’s basically become a supporting character in a show where she’s in the title.

I’m hoping that this changes, and she gets something new to drive her that isn’t “being supportive of another character” because that’s what Pyrrha was. And I don’t want another Pyrrha.

I don’t know what could replace the old arc that Blake had, but really… she’s basically everyone’s hypewoman. She’s there to job at a grimm that Ruby one-shots. She’s there to be Yang’s emotional support girlfriend. She’s there to let Weiss beat up racists. And I miss the driven Blake that I enjoyed back in the earlier volumes. The one that stood up to racists. The one who was an equal to Ruby in a combat scenario. The one that was an actual character and not a damsel in distress.

Maybe this post will age. Maybe it won’t. I want it to age though. I want it to age worse than milk. I want it to age like a fish on hot asphalt.

So, on the off chance that the writers are reading this, please: do better with Blake.

[rwdestuffs]

Y’know, I think I know why the writers added the Schnee family abuse storyline and the Faunus racism subplot.

They wanted to have issues with the world that weren’t tied to the grimm and/or Salem. And credit where it’s due, that is interesting. There are problems that you can’t pin on one issue. And credit to that. Like… legitimate credit to that. That stuff is actually interesting.

And I think I can get what they’re trying to do with the Faunus Racism storyline, “Violence isn’t the answer.” and all that. But the problem is that while the X-Men go out of their way to say that both Magneto and Professor X have valid points for their own sides, this show kinda only says “Blake is right, and anyone who says that fighting works is wrong.”

Unlike the X-Men, where Magneto says that “Humans won’t accept us, we must fight for our future” and Professor X is saying “We must teach humans that we are like them”, Blake is basically only spouting the things that Professor X is saying, but doesn’t consider what Magneto is saying at all. Now, should the show just go beat-for-beat what X-Men did?

No. Of course not. But the show could have taken inspiration from these other media that has done this sort of storyline. X-Men had their own issues. They were an allegory for racial minorities, but their members were prominently white until they added Storm in the 70s. Every racial allegory story has issues, but there are many understandings of what is and what isn’t the right solution. The fact that they keep having to fight for their rights (aside from the fact that they’d have to stop selling comics) is because those that are in the majority will never want to relinquish power.

Sienna Khan was arguably the best Magneto equivalent that we could have gotten. In fact, she was a similar Faunus type to Blake, so the annalogy would have been really interesting to see.

Plus, Blake, like Professor X, is a passing person who has never really had to face discrimination in her life. Even if we assume that her parents only got that mansion after they stepped down, Blake hasn’t needed to really face any racism in her life. It’s what lets her dismiss the suffering of other Faunus in such a way that makes her seem really entitled. She declares that other Faunus have to protest “the right way” in order to make any progress.

If the discussion came down to “How much violence is too much violence?” Then we would have something interesting. Because at the very least, we would know that Adam is the area where it’s “too much.” But as Blake herself points out in Volume 1, Sienna got results. So clearly Ghira is the area where it’s “too little.” Instead, we ditch the discussion completely and we get “Any violence is too much violence.”

Okay, then why not stop the grimm by sitting around a campfire singing the Remnant equivalent of Kumbaya? If any amount of violence won’t work against racism, then clearly any amount of racism won’t work against the grimm.

Onto the Schnee abuse subplot, that’s clearly there to give the daughter of one of the world’s biggest racists a sympathetic angle to her story. If her dialogue with Blake had her admitting that she was using the Faunus as a scapegoat to try to excuse her father’s abuse, then we would actually have a discussion, and it would have served as great character development for Weiss. It would have made her line in Volume 2, where she claims that she “always knew” that her company was racist feel less forced, and more genuine. Because it would mean that, deep down, she knew that it was wrong of them to do it, but she was trying to make excuses for her abusive father so she thought nothing of it.

If we had to bring in a media equivalent for this, think of it as, and I honestly can’t believe I’m making this comparison, Zuko from Avatar. He also had an abusive father and a mother that was not always there, similar to Weiss. They even both have scars that were given to them by their fathers. Zuko is a prince. He is the next heir to the throne, and he is basically trying to stop the hope for the rest of the world simply because he was in an abusive situation.

In a sense, Zuko was basically justifying his own actions in part due to his father’s abuse towards him, and how it has ultimately caused him a great deal of distress. Once he realizes this, he calls out his father to his face and tries to make amends. Something that a lot of people were upset that Weiss didn’t get to do.

Weiss not being able to call out her father is a massive missed opportunity, and the fact that she came to the realization that her company is horrible off-screen, compared to how Zuko found out how the rest of the world viewed firebenders from his own experiences through well-received episodes is honestly a no-contest. Zuko wins out each and every time. He is simply more developed.

This was all done to try and give Weiss, and by extension the rest of the Schnees not named Jacques, a sympathetic angle to their story. Except the writers never really got why Zuko and the Fire Nation’s story worked. Now, I doubt that they intentionally made these parallels between Weiss and Zuko, but Weiss’ whole story is her trying to redeem her company, similar to how Zuko is trying to find his nation’s honor and restore it.

But with Weiss coming to these realizations off-screen, it makes rooting for her to redeem her company hard to do. We don’t get these realizations because… I guess the writers thought that four whole episode dedicated to some generic white kid whose initial isn’t in the title was more important…

Without these realizations, Weiss’ character is ultimately divisive. And really… We need to have actual in-show confirmation that she actually apologized for her racism. Then everything else can be interpreted. Maybe in Volume 9, while she’s separated from the rest of her team, we can have her agonizing over her past mistakes. And if anything, all of the characters can be doing that. With questions of self-doubt and the intrusive thoughts that they only make things worse, the realization of that may lead to the revelation of how they can actually emerge victorious can come about.

[rwdestuffs]

Y’know, I like Yang and all, she’s my favorite character, and I like a lot of her story, but I really don’t like how she kinda is now just the person Blake chases after.

Don’t get me wrong, Blake’s heartbreak and rage at Yang falling into the void is really well-done, but it just reminds us that the writers don’r know what to do with Blake.

I used to enjoy Blake’s story in the early volumes. She was a no-nonsense person who could call out both sides of an argument. She’d look to a member of the White Fang and say “No. You’re not fighting for justice. You’re fighting because you’re just angry and want to take it out on someone.” and then she’d take a look at a racist and say “You just think that you’re better than a faunus because you’re a bigoted moron with no sense of self-reflection.” Then she just kinda became a pity-party.

And literally, all I wanted out of the whole thing with Yang was that she left a note. Like… Nobody calls Yang out on her selfishness on wanting Blake by her for emotional support, but by contrast, nobody really calls Blake out on the amount of emotional distress she put on Yang. She went home to be with her parents, but her logic with Yang was “If I’m not near her, then she won’t get hurt.”

Okay, someone please inform me as to why Adam couldn’t just walk to Patch, cut off Yang’s head, and then mail it to Blake? Like… Blake was being an idiot there. She wasn’t going back to zoo to warn her parents, she went there for comfort. Which, credit where it’s due, is a reasonable reaction to the trauma she faced. But so is Yang’s. Neither gets comforted or called out on their actions, which ultimately means that Yang’s reaction is viewed as much more selfish because we don’t get a chance to have her be called out for it, and for her to point out how much she suffered as well.

This show has honestly exhausted itself with Blake and Yang and is now just using them as ship bait. They’re probably not going to get together or acknowledge their feelings until the end of the series because the writers think that that’s how representation works. You do it at the end, because a bunch of other shows did that too.

Except those other shows did it at the end because of executive meddling.

The entire reason for Blake’s existence was to drive the racism subplot, but because the writers were so horrible at writing it, they finished it up, and now Blake has pretty much nothing left for her character to do except be Yang’s love interest. There could be more potential for her as a character, but the writers don’t know what to do since they dropped the racism arc.

And as much as I want Blake to have story relevance again, she’s not going to, because the writers followed some white karen’s blog on how minorities “should” act instead of actually picking up a history book. And I’d rather they not butcher the racism arc any further just to give Blake relevance again.

The hard part is trying to figure out how Blake can have relevance again. If anything, I would have liked for her to have been Emerald’s new source of comfort. They both have left abusive relationships, and I think that it would be a good idea for Blake to be a source of comfort for Emerald. Blake could have been the source of comfort for a lot of victims, but the writers chose to not do that because they don’t realize it.

Which is another issue with having vomit boy fall to the void island instead of Emerald. We don’t get the Emerald and Blake interactions that could have helped flesh out each character a bit more.

And Yang’s character is pretty much going in the direction of her getting the Spring Maiden powers by way of Raven sacrificing herself to save Yang. This show can’t have its villains grow and learn because the main characters also haven’t really grown as characters either. And if the villains grow and learn but the main characters don’t, then that spells the end of the main characters. But the writers don’t know how to make their main characters grow and learn unless their name rhymes with yawn bark, and this creates massive problems.

It also says a lot when Blake’s character has been so mangled that she doesn’t even fight as well as she should be. It’s telling when a three minute long fight of her fighting Mikasa (Using recycled voice clips, I might add) has her more in-character and using more of her abilities than the actual show. Remember that pathetic display of her fighting that centipede thing? She was busy begging an unconscious and near-auraless Ruby to save her. She barely did anything to save herself, and the writers did all of that just to try to elevate Ruby as a character.

Ruby doesn’t need other characters to tell her how much she’s grown, she should just show it. Instead of Ruby one-shotting that thing, it should have been a team attack. Imagine how much hype there would have been if Blake was actually holding her own, only to get cornered, and having to prepare a clone, only for Ruby to then declare “LADYBUG!” And the two do that awesome slash maneuver from Volume 2 and takes it down that way. Not only would that have saved Blake’s character, but it would have also served as a way to showcase Ruby’s skills as a fighter and as a leader. She calls out the attack, and not only does Blake not hesitate in going into formation, but it then actually works. It would have shown growth on both characters.

Like… These writers don’t really get a whole lot of how these characters should be characters.

This all started as a rant about Blake and Yang’s characters, and then ended up being a rant about how the writing has caused them to be cared about.

[rwdestuffs]

I think I have figured out one of the Blake issues.

It’s the fact that before, in volumes 1-3, she was able to call out both sides. She wasn’t all “This one side is bad” or “This one side is good.” She was able, willing, and even outright said that both sides (the humans and the Faunus) were at fault for some of the things.

She points out that the WF do what they do because they were pushed around and wanted equality. But she’s also able to comment that their actions are misguided at best. She’s able to say that the violence worked, but that it made people fear them instead of respect them. She’s able to point out the faults in the WF technique.

And then you go to the other side, and she’s able to call out Weiss on her racism. She has a list prepared of the horrid practices of the SDC. She expresses disgust at racism in general.

And then you fast forward to now, and she’s shrinking away from racists so that her friends can play the Remnant equivalent of white savior. What happened to the Blake who could call out a racist on their rhetoric and tell them to shut up to their face?

The current issue with Blake is that she’s only calling out her own side, which, credit where it’s due, is a good thing because it shows that you’re capable of critical thinking. But nowadays, Blake can only call out the WF, and doesn’t call out racists… Like at all.

I get that it’s easy to call out racists, but Blake should also be doing that instead of her friends jumping to her defense. If anything, Blake should defend herself, and then her friends should back her up. Or her friends defend her, and Blake then stands her ground. Blake isn’t really being treated as an equal here, she’s being treated as a fragile egg. Something to protect, rather than something that can protect itself.

Blake used to be able to stand up for herself, and to racists. And now she only stands up to the WF or other ‘problematic’ Faunus.

Which honestly makes the racism subplot feel like it was written by a white Karen who thinks that “The good minorities call the cops on minorities that don’t fall in line.”

[rwdestuffs]

well, Miles did defend Blake in the v6 commentary. He said she tries hard and that she doesn’t understand emotions

But apparently, he’ll make a whole video defending the character he voices. And that’s… kinda a lackluster defense IMO. I get that it’s commentary, so there probably wasn’t a whole lot of time, but if he can be bothered to make a video because the character he voices is getting flak, then he should be able to make a video for the other characters too.

Also, I thought that Blake’s actions were more due to her being traumatized and manipulated, not because of some “Blake doesn’t understand emotions” bullcrap.