Back in RWBY Volume 7, our heroes arrived in the technologically advanced Kingdom of Atlas. While they had expected to find safety for themselves and the relic they carried, they soon discovered that the kingdom had begun to implode with the conflict between the military and civilian government coming to a head. In the end, Salem’s attack proves to be the final straw, shattering the people’s trust—both on a personal and national level.
In season eight, the poor in Mantle find themselves abandoned by the rich in the flying city of Atlas. Even as the Grimm continue their attack, no soldiers are dispatched to fight them off. It’s up to the opposition party to keep everyone safe—and they are neither staffed nor equipped to protect the civilian population.
Likewise, these events have led to a loss of trust between our heroes as well. For the last few seasons, Ruby has been the guiding light of the team. Her idealism has kept everyone going. Unfortunately, some of her choices are at least partly responsible for the mess they find themselves in now—and all her friends are aware of this. With her leadership questioned, the teams split in two with Yang’s group seeking to protect the people of Mantle and Ruby’s attempting to restore worldwide communications like they hoped to do last season.
While each of the characters struggles with trying to find the right thing to do, the one it weighs most heavily upon is Ren. Frustrated at the consequences of their failures, Ren focuses on the one thing he has an effect on: himself. This makes him lash out at both himself and others—constantly questioning why kids like them think they know better than career soldiers.
Underneath it all, he’s lost—crushed by the enormity of the task ahead as well as the failures of the past. He just wants someone to have the answers—tell him what to do and where to go to save everyone.
His real turning point is when he realizes, in a flash of insight, that he’s not the only one to feel this way. Even the Ace Ops, the most elite troops Atlas has to offer, are just as scared, worried, and conflicted as he is. This in turn unlocks a new talent within him: the ability to see everyone’s true emotional state.
Suddenly, he no longer needs to fear lies or posturing. He can see right through the brave faces of others. He knows what they are truly feeling and this gives him a new sense of peace—especially when he sees that while most people are afraid, one person isn’t: Jaune. Even in the literal belly of the beast, Jaune is not worrying about what will happen if they fail. He’s focused on making things better by doing the job at hand. And that’s the moral of this season: don’t try to fix everything at once, fix what you can where you can.
The other standout character of the season is Emerald. More than anyone else, she’s the person who has found herself on the evil side by chance rather than deliberate choice. Emerald is loyal to Cinder, not Salem or her cause. She sees Cinder as her family and wants to be relied on as such.
But over the past few seasons, it’s become more and more apparent that Cinder doesn’t care about her. Nothing Emerald does will gain her the love she’s longing for. In this season, she’s all but replaced by the more capable Neapolitan in Cinder’s eyes. It’s clear, even to Emerald by the end, that Cinder cares only for her goals. Only those useful to her in the moment have any worth.
As she grapples with this realization, Emerald also learns that Salem is literally trying to kill all human life on the planet. Up until this point, she has been willing to go along with Salem’s plans as long as that helped Cinder. However, disillusioned with Cinder and knowing the truth of what she has become a part of, when given the chance, she defects.
Emerald is a complex character who is finally able to break free from Cinder’s shadow and able to make her own choices—to be the hero she always had the potential to be. It will be great to see how she grows over the next season—especially since it’s only a matter of time till she faces Cinder once more.
All in all, Season 8 is another dark chapter for RWBY. Our heroes are fighting a losing battle and know it—yet, they must find a way to carry on. In the end, one hero is left dead alongside more than a few civilians, and one of humanity’s final four kingdoms has fallen to the Grimm. Worse still, team RWBY and Jaune have fallen into an unknown abyss between dimensions—likely alive but who knows where? Things are most certainly not hopeless but are without a doubt once again worse than ever before.
RWBY can be viewed on Rosterteeth.com.
I just wanted to give out a big thanks to Joshua Ott for sponsoring this review with his Patreon donation. (At the $60 a month tier, you are allowed to pick anything up to an including a 13ish episode series to be reviewed–which is released in addition to the one article a week I normally put out here on BiggestinJapan.com.) So thanks again!
Be First to Comment