Because you are the Cinwin poster I thought you'd appreciate this. Cinder -> Cinderella. 3 Nights at the ball -> Three fights. Prince paints stairs with tar -> "You will pay for everything you have done". Winter -> Kai of the Snow Queen story. Depression mirror shard in eye and heart. Heart removed by Greta's tears (parallel hasn't happened). Eye by Kai crying - caused by Greta. Or there's a reason CinWin started showing up more at the end of volume 8.
The sheer amount of parallels between these two both in the show and in their extracurricular materials is frankly amazing. Atlas’ two symbolically main characters being the two sides of a coin and so impactful on each other will never not be curious.
Also I laughed at being the ‘cinwin poster’, I’m just deranged I promise
Raven's mask is fun to poke at because yeah the whole Grimm mask coincides very clearly with her banditry and yet ... It also lets her hide being a Maiden.
raven's mask is my favorite thing especially since they answered a question about its purpose ( is it to hide that she's the spring maiden? ) with Sorry, Potentially Spoilery™ and. yeah. there's something to it, definitely. like, when the white fang's reasoning was "humanity wanted to make monsters out of us, so we chose to don the faces of monsters", how much of raven's reasoning resonates with that? did someone play a role in it, or was it raven herself who felt like a monster for reasons unknown and chose to don specifically a grimm mask, when, if it was only to hide, any mask would do?
So with Miorine yesterday I was listening to the first ending song which the second verse... Dream turned to nightmare indeed. It's going to be interesting to see how Miorine's character arc is tied up.
Three episodes left. That's enough time. I mean, I'm biased for sure, but Miorine legitimately cannot start feeling better until she meets back up with Suletta, and at this point that's going to happen sooner rather than later (personally, I'm almost positive it'll be in the next episode). She's got to forgive herself. Suletta forgives her--of course Suletta forgives her--but Miorine needs to do it as well. That's how her arc is going to end.
A possible future addition to your post on Winter and facelessness. This episode we have Winter be out of shot for essentially the entire time Marrow is calling Ironwood out. Up until the time she lays out Marrow to the floor to get him out of the firing line. And given that she beat Ironwood pulling the trigger... The audience can realize she was waiting/dreading Ironwood's reaction the entire time. Not sure if the cast l, Ironwood especially did though.
OH YOU NOTICED THAT TOO HUH
Winter being conspicuously absent and then punching Marrow out of the path of a bullet this episode creates (or maybe completes) a very interesting triptych. last season we had Winter hurtling out of nowhere--from the aftermath when we do see her, it’s implied LITERALLY past Cinder’s blind spot--to slice that Grimm Arm off and save Penny and Fria; with War, we had Winter be either faceless or just offscreen again until she steps in between Elm and Ren. from a visual narrative perspective all these position Winter as...the unexpected, a pivot that alters the course of something, which certainly reads to ME like some Grade A foreshadowing.
oh the other hand, and as you point out, we don’t see Winter’s face or facelessness at ALL during Marrow Takes a Stand, which is fascinating considering all the hay i made about how the camera this season isn’t really about letting her “conceal don’t feel” anymore. some of the difference between her framing (or...lack thereof) here and in War can be chalked up to the fact that Winter is in charge in War, and the camera never lets her forget it even when she’s turned away from us. but Harriet, Elm, and Vine aren’t calling the shots either during this episode, and we definitely see them react. added to this is that we’ve HAD Winter reaction shots from scenes like this before: during Worst Case Scenario, for example, the camera was very intent on showing her face (and Clover’s) as she forms up under Ironwood’s new orders. it could be that we’re supposed to implicitly trust her, but then there’s no point in so consciously withholding her presence.
YMMV, but i think this points to it not just being Winter’s ACTIONS being a wildcard, but also her exact thoughts and feelings. we can suss out a general direction, but the specificities are being withheld both from the characters and from us, the audience. and given how much Winter has been visibly hiding so far, given how the one time we DID get a peek into her interiority through Ren we saw a mess of colors that has yet to be replicated...it’s gonna be a hell of a ride when we finally find out.
So I just wanted to point out that Shovel Mom has apparently made well enough friends or "friends" with Fox Mom that she's entrusted with carrying her son's newest friend. It's a small thing but given how the last episode went I'm enjoying it.
Wait wait, people are missing that Winter slammed into Marrow in such a way that it took him out of the firing line of the literal gun Ironwood had out. The extremely over the top performance from someone in a literal back brace versus you know getting the AceOps to help. The show isn't subtle about the fact that Marrow was about to be shot dead. Winter wasn't just saving his life, she was saving it from ending in the next three seconds. That arrest style meant any bullets wouldn't hit Marrow.
I have no idea if people are missing it or not, this fandom’s past track record just leaves me with zero faith that people can understand something that’s not spelled out with words. And also some things that are spelled out with words.
To add to the Taiyang discussion - it's never been explicitly stated in show but Yang's actions with the Paladin Adam pt 2 and Neo most recently decidedly imply that there's a defense aspect to her semblance. As anyone playing tank in a MMO can tell you - if you're hitting the defense powers you believe you need it. If you're depending on the shield to hold, typically it doesn't matter that you depend on it if it breaks because you were dead anyways. And Yang was the one who gave Ruby the speech
On risks this volume. Something that I can't help but think back to with her activating her semblance to push Ruby out of the way. It was either for extra speed or in the hope the defense would be enough to not break her semblance. Or both. But risks are called risks for a reason aren't they. And honestly I think Yang's fall parallels what happened to her in Beacon with Blake
I admit analyzing the minute details of fight scenes and semblances is something I’m quite terrible at, so bear with me on this question ‘cause I might sound very dumb here. If anyone wants to chime in on this, feel free.
To answer the technical side of Yang’s semblance, that’s an interesting idea I hadn’t thought of before. As far as I’m aware Yang’s semblance absorbs incoming damage that powers her up, so it makes sense that to a degree it also offers some semblance (heh) of extra defense as well. Which means that even when discounting her sacrificial tendencies, it’s more beneficial for Yang to take a hit than other team members, even if the damage is never returned.
Is this basic Tank tactics? I never played an MMO
Now as to the implications about Yang’s psyche, hmm, that’s a good one! To put it simply, Yang’s strategy of taking more risks for others is also exactly her selfless mindset of dedicating herself to others even at the cost of herself. That’s... also quite depressing. But ooh, interesting.
Yang jumping in front of Ruby last episode is exactly what happened in Beacon when she jumped to save Blake from Adam. I was really freaking emotional when I realized this last Saturday. To put it bluntly, Yang’s best trait is also her worst - her selflessness is self-sacrificial, and girl really needs to face that fault head on (and not just in dire hours! You can’t heal trauma if you only face it in extreme and stressful situations).
In the context of Tai discussions, this is something I take a lot of issues with is how he “motivated” Yang to get better, because it really does feel like he can’t think of a way to do it without asking her to give herself up for others (in this case, Ruby and himself). Like I said in my reply, this is the kind of fault I find very believable in parenting, even with someone like Tai who means well. Arguably this wasn’t CRWBY’s intent with Tai, but we’ll see.
So something else with the whole Penny probably being brought back through soul shenanigans theory - if true in the mean time she's staying with Winter. Aka Winter "Oh dear, someone get that woman to stay in the hospital bed" Schnee. Who seems to share a very similar problem of not valuing herself. Penny having a front row seat of Winter not caring for herself feels like an excellent way for her to also get the lesson as well of "Self-sacrificial bullshit has high costs for everyone involved"
Oh yeah absolutely! One very interesting thing about the potential plot of these two being headmates is that they both have these self-sacrificial tendencies. And then both of them really don’t want the other to do anything self-sacrificial. They’re stuck in a situation now where they can’t be self-sacrificial without hurting the other as well, and I hope they’re both going to learn a lot through all this.
