I often feel like the FNDM, especially Anime fans, are odd for trying to whitewash Ironwood’s actions or claiming they came out of nowhere. When frankly, a lot of the appeal for Anime growing up was how it was animation that depicted types of characters that even adult animation weren’t known for.
For all the memes, what made the likes of Death Note fascinating was how Light and L were very much people you would never wanna be friends with but were infinitely fascinating for how their minds works. How they each saw themselves in the right and why. It among other gateway Anime were appealing for their character writing being challenging at times.
But we also have to contend with the whole “Wow, cool robot” side of fandoms where Ironwood’s “cool” battles and swagger make many overlook that he’s… not exactly a guy you’d see a movie with.
I LOVE characters that are not easy to like or they kind that I’d punch in the gut if I had the nerve. One of the rewarding things about RWBY was seeing how the usual likable cast of archetypes being fleshed out into people who asked you to look beyond initial impressions.
Yet it seems like fandom is constantly paying lip service to this type of character that they dilute in their mind. I don’t know if it’s Social Media itself or something that’s always been there but getting worse but we need fandoms to practice what they preach when they asked for “more complex characters.” Especially when they’re not white and/or guys.
So let’s talk about types of headcanons, because not all of them are equal.
Headcanon A: Canon defiance - Headcanons that directly contradict the actual canon of the media you’re consuming. “Loki never hurt anybody,” “Fred Weasley never died,” “Spirit from Soul Eater was a great husband,” “Qrow never punched Oscar,” “James Ironwood never turned evil,” “Ruby managed to save everyone from Salem in Atlas and Mantle,” “Winter never hit Weiss,” “Adam wasn’t abusive to Blake.”
Sometimes people say things like this in jest, but these are frequently used by people making re writes of canon or simply ignoring canon for the purposes of their fanfictions. This is also used by people who once really liked a show or even just a character, but discredit what they feel like is bad writing, ruins canon for them, or ruins a character that they’re attached to. This is very valid to do but you can’t use these to argue your points, period.
Headcanon B: It’s a stretch - Headcanons that you might not be able to definitely prove as wrong, but have no credibility in the actual canon and often have hints contradicting it. “Draco started realizing he was wrong years before he took the Dark Mark, he just faked like he still believed it,” “Uma in Descendants was only pretending to care about the Isle kids to get to Mal,” “Lupin never had any romantic feelings for Tonks,” “James Ironwood never fought a real human person before Watts,” “Yang and Blake talked through and worked out all their problems after they killed Adam,” “Ozpin emotionally manipulated Qrow and Raven into accepting the ability to turn into birds,” “Winter loves and tried to help Whitley out of his abusive situation,” “Blake never had any romantic feelings for Sun.”
These sorts of headcanons are still valid, people often times fill in the gaps of media they enjoy in order to increase their enjoyment of it, even if those ideas don’t fit easily into the narrative. I do this all the time, I have tons of headcanons that I use in fanfictions that just can’t hold up easily or you have to do a lot of stretching and jumping through mental hoops to make them work. But again, you just can’t use these things to argue your points. It’s not supported by the text, in fact it’s sometimes hinted to not be the case. That’s not to say that you can’t talk about these or even comment them on people’s posts, but it’s a real good idea to start with something like ‘This is my headcanon for-’ or ‘How I justify this is-’ or even ‘I know this doesn’t make much sense but I like to headcanon-’
Headcanon C: No proof, no hints - Headcanons that don’t have any ground to stand on, but can’t be disproven and aren’t hinted at as right or wrong in the text. Nothing saying it might be right, nothing saying it might be wrong. “Legolas had romantic feelings for Aragorn,” “Ginny showed signs of magic when she was five,” “Hector and Ernesto from Pixar’s Coco were orphans,” “Roman Torchwick was actually Nora’s father even though neither of them knew,” “Torchwick came from a family of Hunters,” “Qrow and Ironwood were students at the Huntsman Academies together.” “Jaune didn’t get along with some of his sisters.”
These are absolutely fine and often really fun headcanons, but again, just aren’t supported, so you can’t use them to argue your points. These are usually harmless, though, you don’t often see them crop up in arguments.
Headcanon D: Hinted at / supported by canon - These are headcanons that you might not be able to prove as definitively true, but actually do have hints or pieces of canon that support it. You could also refer to these as a ‘reading of the text,’ because you actually can find things pointing to it in the text. “Sirius and Snape were both abused as kids,” “Han Solo is a little bit Force sensitive,” “Sherlock in the show Sherlock was babied by his parents his whole life,” “Adam was abusive to Blake before she left the White Fang,” “Taiyang has PTSD that still impacts him during the show,” “Qrow was treated worse in the Branwen Tribe than Raven was,” “Weiss didn’t go to combat school and was instead trained by Winter,” “Whitley was physically abused just like Weiss was,” “Yang had feelings for Blake in the first five seasons.”
While these sorts of arguments aren’t definitive, I feel like they can at least be used to argue points because they do have some ground to stand on even if they aren’t out and out stated in the show proper. "This moment suggests A” is a perfectly valid point to make. For example “Yang winking at Blake and saying ‘I love it when your fiesty’ and asking for a dance could hint towards Yang having feelings for her,” that’s a perfectly fine response to something like “There’s no groundwork for the Bumblebee ship.” But “Things like Yang winking aren’t proof of romantic feelings on her part and are easily read as friendship since she’s been known to wink at others she obviously isn’t attracted to,” is still a very valid point to make, because being hinted at is not the same thing as being confirmed in the narrative. People (including me sometimes lol) need to remember that the way they’ve read things aren’t always the way others have and that even when they feel that their headcanons do have hints or support from canon, that doesn’t mean that it’s the definitive and only acceptable reading.
Why am I talking about this? Because I see so much ‘presenting my headcanon as fact’ and ‘using that headcanon to argue my points,’ in the RWBY fandom (and other fandoms tbh) and it’s so weird and trippy. Especially because I’ve seen the first two way too many times and it feels sometimes like I dropped into an alternate universe where some people watched a different show than me. The amount of times I’ve been in a debate with someone and then realize there’s no point in continuing, since their arguments were based on headcanons. I’m coming to realize that this is actually pretty regular, but it really is very frustrating at times. XD
Look can we stop calling RT CRWBY? It was cute name before we got to know them but Cooperations are NOT your friends!
RT doesn't have your best interest in mind, especially after coming out as hugely complicit in inner workplace racism happening and not saying anything until they were exposed.
I think RT especially now needs to know people aren't gonna take their shit, I know alot of you wanna pretend that didn't happen, treat it like an oopsie but realistically they're horrible writers who don't listen to the slightest criticism and horrible with minorities in their own offices.
They don't deserve pet names, again they aren't your friends; not even remotely.
This is just my cheesy opinion on Clover, so read at your own risk.
It’s so weird how flippant the fandom can be when it comes to Clover.
They love him, yet when the show asks of them to hate Clover, then they will. Clover bashing galore, even though he wasn’t a terrible person. It really doesn’t matter to me that he is an Atlesian Ace Ops, he is far beyond a horrible human being. It’s sad the way he is thrown back and forth from being cherished to being bashed like he’s a second Ironwood.
To me, Clover could of been the real answer the vol8 problems. All of them lmao. Of all characters, Clover was the most reasonable and optimistic despite the circumstances. He never antagonized anyone, and was such an extroverted joy to have. I barely found him violent, or have violent tendencies. To know the fndm thinks of him as so vile and “facist” is outrageous.
Even if he was only with us for one volume (season,) it doesn’t take long for people to truly love a character (if written well.) People loved/ love Clover because of not what he was as a romantic option, but for who he was. A kind, caring, fun and sociable person who was everybody’s friend. A good role model, the better part of others that they lacked. That beam of hope that the show lacked SO MUCH in our existing characters. Team RWB.
A good guy. That’s what he was.
Even if he was closely working alongside Ironwood, he never seemed the type to judge others for their differences. Opinionated, but not the one to be judgmental.
I’m pretty sure Clover would never agree to bombing Mantle. I believe everybody isn’t dumb enough to believe Clover would do such a thing, especially when he’s got a mind of his own. He’s a man of the law, but he’s not out of touch as the crazies would like to believe he is. If anything, it would be Clover who would be on the short-end of the stick if he was alive and dealing with Ironwood’s orders.
Think of him in Winter’s shoes instead, if he was not dead and still led the Ace Ops. Ironwood is spiraling downwards mentally, and all he can do is rely on his trusted captain. Now, I wouldn’t believe him to fold as much as Winter did, as he tends to speak his mind freely, and step up if he had to take the lead momentarily. Even then, he wouldn’t antagonize Ironwood despite the circumstances, keeping himself optimistic.
If it meant that Clover would be killed or would have to be the last man left to fight Ironwood, then it should be so. Clover is a hero in his own right, following orders or doing what’s right for people who need him the most.
And so that’s why I think Clover died, he woulda been our savior.
Okay so, I’m about to get a bit fired up warning ahead so I feel I need to state a few things this post isn’t and what it is:
It isn’t me arguing that Illia should not be redeemed.
It isn’t me saying I’m sure Emerald and/or Mercury will be redeemed.
It is me calling out some hypocrisy in the fandom that has been agitating me for a very long time.
It is going to focus slightly more on Mercury’s case than Emeralds thought it applies to both because, overall he seems to get the worse wrap.
It is going to use recent developments and facts about Illia Amitola to illustrate a point.
Long winded argument under the cut.
Facts about Illia:
As a child she lost her parents and suffered greatly at the hands of humans as she tried to blend in with them and then inevitably lost her parents.
She joined the White Fang and stayed loyal to it as it’s various leaders offered her an answer to the pain she felt, even when that answer became extreme and violent.
She hurt people and sided with Adam Taurus whether we saw it or not.
She follow(s/ed) Adam because he is offering relief to her pain by lashing out against those that oppressed her.
She is confused in pain and lost following a source that offers her some kind of pain relief because of her own confusion.
She has Blake Belladonna to try and save her from this path.
Most of the FNDM from what I can tell is all hyped and on board to redeem her as a character.
Facts about Emerald:
She grew up on the streets alone stealing to survive.
She was threatened to join Cinder and also offered freedom from the plague on her whole life known as hunger.
She is tossed between praise and punishment kept loyal to Cinder as the first consistent she as offered in her otherwise inconsistent and dangerous life-style.
Emerald was, confused and in pain just trying to survive day to day and someone offered her an out and basically gave her Stockholm syndrome.
From what i can tell the FNDM is somewhat divided on if she is worthy for being redeemed.
Facts about Mercury:
Mercury Black spent his childhood isolated with an abuser on a mountain somewhere in Remnant, it is canon the words used in the blacked out screen dialog when Cinder inquires about Marcus are: he lives on the mountain alone with his son.
He was beaten he was regularly beaten by his father who was a renown assassin, renown enough to catch the attention of someone intending to fight a MAIDEN basically a demi-god Mercury was abused by physically.
Wherever his mom is she certainly wasn’t in the picture for quite a while.
Cinder found him when he had just lost his house cuz it burned down during their fight and killed his father in what was likely a crime of passion. He had no direction only anger you see it in the tonality of ‘What are you looking at?’
He had no where to go, he was lost, in pain, probably already missing limbs, injured to the point he could likely die of infection.
Cinder offered him a purpose when he had none he was a wild card who had spent his life being beaten and driven to patricide.
While still divided a larger portion of the FNDM (from my observation) seems to think he is less worthy of redemption then either of the two characters above.
The point:
What the fuck?
No really, what the fuck?
Illia supported ADAM a psychotic murderer due to her tragic backstory there is no doubt in my mind innocent people were harmed by this decision on screen or off.
Yet she deserves redemption more universally than these other two characters with literal parallel structures of set up.
The only differences are: Who found them Adam and Cinder both suck, and whether or not we see the majority of their acts on screen. And they don’t get someone like Blake who knows them enough to save them.
THAT’S IT.
Illia is certainly at least it seems on a path of redemption and tha’ts great it’s unclear if Emerald and Mercury will ever be redeemed but that’s not the point.
If you think Illia deserves redemption and Emerald & Mercury don’t, don’t talk to me.
If you don’t think a childhood of violence and only knowing violence have had a lasting effect on Mercury Black’s psyche to make him the way he is don’t talk to me.
If you’re excited to see Illia’s redemption but think Em and Merc deserve everything they get don’t talk to me.
If you can’t understand why Emerald and Mercury not being redeemed or at least spared would be tragic then:
TBH it really seems like even a lot of remaining rwdeposters are more hellbent on whatever they consider character/plot fuckups (which I don't always disagree with!) than pointing out Arr Tee's goddamn core worker abuses. Tons of "Yang doesn't introspect properly as an isolated combat amputee" or "how dare they withhold things from Ironwood" or "why is Jaune eating this much of the script", way less "so, uh, did they actually cut down on crunch? Doubled down in the middle of a plague?! WTF??"
Literally saw a post saying "No. Don't let Blake be happy, give her more trauma" today. And like…
Guys. I get it. You want the story to be better. You want the representation to be improved. You want more character development. But…
Priorities. Workers' conditions first, then story.
Funny, that 'Yang would've fucked up there even if Merc was just a sore loser' poster even mentioned stans not Letting A Main Be Flawed in a 'just admit she was a ragey dope at Beacon' sense. But FFS there was plenty of imperfect & interesting stuff about Yang's character besides that half-assed 'see, she's More Zen Now' angle fans (including loads of self-styled analysts) have never stopped insisting on.
She had only a few moments of rage even. Her trailer, the frustration of a bunch of things happening at once during Volume 1, and maybe a moment or two in Volume 2. None of that really screamed "Rageaholic" to me, that said "This person has a limit to the amount of frustration they can handle."
