I want to talk a bit about Ironwood and Adam, and how their villainy differs. How the latter’s cruelty is so personal, and how the former’s cruelty is impersonal.
There’s a lot of good reasons to compare Ironwood and Winter’s relationship to Adam and Blake’s. For example, how Ironwood going after Winter after he lost mirrors Adam going after Blake after his loss. Winter’s arc in V7-8 also parallels what I imagine Blake’s arc was pre-series, with the difference being Blake’s story starts where Winter’s story ended - on a train, cutting off two train cars; on an ambush, fighting for what’s right. But in the narrative of RWBY, Adam is Blake’s villain, and Ironwood is everyone’s villain.
I think about power, control, cruelty, loyalty and devotion. When I think of Ironwood, all of these concepts are impersonal and grand - it’s Ironwood versus the world, the people who are ungrateful, the city’s the enemy. It’s the thought that Salem’s inhumanity admirable, it’s the admiration of sacrifice, it’s the master plan only he can enact. The enemy’s always everyone and no one - it’s Oscar, it’s RWBY, it’s Winter, it’s Qrow, it’s Robyn - or it’s only Salem, the deity above. It’s sentencing Mantle to death with no inflection. It’s wanting to put the weight of the world on his shoulders, to be Atlas of myth and the kingdom.
I think about power, control, cruelty, loyalty and devotion. When I think of Adam, all of these concepts are personal and intimate - it’s the world despising him, it’s the damage done to him. It’s Blake who hurt him, it’s Yang in his way, it’s the Belladonna’s who are cowards, it’s Sienna not doing enough. It’s Adam versus the world, split into individuals who hurt him. It’s abusing and hurting Blake, more than anything else. It’s the facade of fighting for a higher cause to fuel his power trip. The pretense is at justice, the cruelty is what he’s after.
Watch them fall as
I am glorified
When Ironwood dies, there’s no fanfare, no trumpets to hail our victory, no grand speeches and monologues. He is alone, he is human. He dies as everything he strived not to be, human and alone. The titan failed to hold up Atlas, because he was never a titan to begin with - he was a man. The world was never held with the power of one man, the world was kept by individuals working in tandem. A man will be crushed by the world unceremoniously, as is its way.
Crushed by the weight of the world
When Adam dies, the world stands still for a moment. He dies in struggle, a martyr if his cause wasn’t cruelty. He gets the monologue and the fight to the death. He has the audience of the world to watch him. Not because the world, comprised of everyone is there; because the world, Blake’s, is there. He hurt the world at large, but his aim was always personal at Blake. It’s fitting such a personal villain’s death would seem so large, when it’s one’s world at stake.
It's just a story of a boy who lost his way
There’s a juxtaposition here between Ironwood and Adam: Ironwood was everyone’s villain, but his death reminds us he’s just a man. Adam was first and foremost Blake’s villain, but his death seemed large than life. An individual held so much power and influence to damage everyone, can still be so small and alone. An individual who started from nothing and whose cruelty was often personal, can still affect so much of our world.
