December 03, 2020

The Victims of Poor Development - Part 2: Winter Schnee

December 03, 2020/ Caitlyn Clendenning

If you haven’t seen the last blog on this topic, I suggest you read it first here. It’s not mandatory, but I set the scene for this rant disguised as an essay better in the first blog than this one.

V7: The First Steps Towards Darkness Part 2

The Winter Maiden

The problems didn’t stop with General Ironwood, and only got compounded with one more critical error. In my opinion, this misstep was the most frustrating but could have been saved… and then wasn't. This problem started during the Penny-Winter vs. Cinder fight and the moment I realized that I was about to be pissed off to a degree none before seen by humanity.

Winter Schnee was given the most amount of screen time she’d ever had and she has always been a fan-favourite side character and stood among Glinda in the series two most badass women in positions of power.

The show developed her along with Penny, the revived sentient Android who was another fan favourite that was lost back in Volume 3. Now, in general, I stand firmly against any form of “revival” of a character, android or otherwise. All it ever really does is prove to the audience that you’re unwilling to kill anyone important and that this character was written to die dramatically. Penny may as well have gone to summer camp for three seasons for all the difference it made to the plot by that point. That said, I could have overlooked it… if not for the final mistake.

Penny becoming the Winter Maiden was the absolute worst way to end that season possible. Single-handedly became the reason that, for the first time since Volume 1, I didn’t rewatch RWBY once in the hiatus between seasons.

See, writing is subjective, but Penny was already on thin ice before the worst happened. The previous Winter Maiden, Fria, was given an understandably small amount of screen time. There was a lot to do in Volume 7, like set Winter up to be the Winter Maiden and have Team RWBY come into conflict with Ironwood, to name a few. However, what we did know of Fria was that Winter had been visiting her every day for months and became her only source of company outside the presumed small visits from Ironwood.

We weren’t shown were these “memory problems” that lead to Fria not remembering Winter in time to pass the Maiden powers onto her… yet in the same breath, still, remember General Ironwood enough to want to send a message to him? I am against the idea that all elderly people have memory problems because it’s simply not true. More than that, however, is that I’m against the idea that Fria could somehow remember General Ironwood alone and not remember the young woman who had tea with her every day for months?

Okay, Rooster Teeth.

This was transparent to me as a cheap way to give the Winter Maiden powers to Penny instead of the woman who trained, fought, and almost died for it. Arguably, this could all be discredited as “life isn’t fair” and “they didn’t say she DIDN’T have memory problems,” where I’d disagree on both fronts, but we’d come to an impasse.

Instead, I have a stronger foundation to stand on. The Winter Maiden powers are meant to go to women exclusively. Penny is a female, Android or not; she does identify as a woman which does make her a woman. This isn’t the problem; the problem is that Penny’s aura isn’t her own, it’s Pietro’s aura. Synthetic people cannot produce their own aura. We’ve been shown time and time again that aura and semblances are inherently connected and maybe I was wrong to assume that the Winter Maiden powers would be included, but the moment of her using those powers seemed to prove me right. Penny is a program given thought through the aura of a male scientist.

Maybe I’m wrong, but the fact that I’ve brought this argument up and never been shown something to discredit it says enough to me about that moment.

This isn’t even getting into the fact that Penny now feels a little too much like a wish-fulfillment self insert. Not only was she the only character to come back from the dead, but she is also the only hero given the maiden power. I don’t have the word count capabilities to keep going into every way it was wrong, but trust me that I could make an entire blog about all the little reasons that moment still sends me into a rage a year later.

This moment has become, to me, the moment that Winter Schnee was robbed, and we as an audience were robbed of the beautiful, tense conflict we could’ve been given if Winter had been given the Maiden Powers instead. Unfortunately, this blog isn’t a “what if”; it is a “what happened” blog.

Volume 8: Wishing I Wasn't Right

Someone Show Penny the Door

There wasn't much when it came to the Winter Maiden being Penny in the first episode… yet they still managed to piss me off enough to pause the whole episode and scream into my lap for 2 minutes before resuming.

All I have to say on the matter is as such: why give Penny the Maiden Powers if she was just going to turn around and plan to march into Salem’s hand willingly. At that point, why not just give it to Cinder on the rooftop before? The reason Penny is the worst option for the Winter Maiden is precisely this: she would make this decision and doom all of Remnant. Winter wouldn’t have.

There isn’t much to say on that yet; as of writing this, there is only one episode of Volume 8 out, but I couldn’t keep these feelings in anymore.

Conclusion

I am confident that out of loyalty alone, I will be dragged to the finish line of RWBY one way or another. I would have preferred for it to be through the same joy, excitement and suspense-filled thrill that the show brought me through most of V7 and the Volumes before it. The last thing I ever wanted to be was another one of those people on the internet who hates RWBY.

I don’t hate RWBY. If I hated RWBY, I wouldn’t feel so let down and disappointed. Yet, one episode into Volume 8 and I’m considering cancelling my Prime Membership and waiting until all the episodes are out to save my mental health the disappointment and frustration of slogging through whatever is to come.

If you liked this episode, this isn’t an attack on you or your judgment. I sincerely wish I did.

[UPDATE - we are 4 episodes into Volume 8, and I have officially decided to unsubscribe from Rooster Teeth FIRST. I won’t be keeping up with the Volume and have elected to binge it when it finishes in the new year.]

Image source — DreamWorks Studios [Catra]

Caitlyn C

Hi! My name is Caitlyn, a 22 year old dreamer whose main interests include: crying over fiction at 1 in the morning (mainly She Ra and Claymore), babysitting kittens, reading, and ignoring the doctor recommended 8 hours of sleep rule. I’ve been writing as a hobby for as long as I can remember but had my first interaction with finishing my first (garbage) novel in 2014. Now, I am a Professional Writing student who works hard every day to make less garbage novels through practice, reading, and calling my obsessions “studying”.

November 16, 2020

The Victims of Poor Development - Part 1: Ironwood

November 16, 2020/ Caitlyn Clendenning

During a previous blog, I’ve said that I strongly oppose the idea of bashing a show you hate. There is so much less to say when you hate something, and what you have to say is seen through a lens of hatred.

This is all to say that I love Rooster Teeth’s RWBY and have since seen the Red Trailer back in 2012. I love it so much; I talked myself out of writing this blog twice now. However, recent events have changed my mind (i.e. the absolute rage-inducing disappointment of the first episode of Volume 8.) I’m disappointed and angry, and this blog will try to go over a summary of the events and frustrations I had leading up to the moment I ripped my AirPod out of my ear and threw it down at the coffee table before finishing the episode.

V7: The First Steps Towards Darkness

The General Ironwood Mistake

The first moment that caused me to hesitate and pause was when Ironwood and Oscar/Ozpin were left alone. Though brief, their conflict was telling of the direction the writers were planning on taking and it immediately set off a dozen red flags in my head as it all fell into place.

The heart of Volume 7’s conflict with Team RWBY and the Atlas Military was a moral disagreement. They both have the same goal; save Amity and protect as many people in Atlas and Mantle as possible. At least, that was how it started. See, the first half of the conflict was simple;

Buy time to save all of remnant by raising Atlas out of Salem’s reach, but leave some of Mantle’s citizens behind in the process -- as we know there was no feasible way to stop Salem.

Or stay and try to save Mantle and Atlas against impossible odds, and risk Salem dropping the raised city of Atlas onto Mantle -- killing everyone.

I was super invested in the conflict because at first, it all made sense. Team RWBY and Co. are a group of teenagers, so they believe that they need to stay to save everyone despite almost guaranteeing everyone’s death in the process. The General, a man with more experience in the military than the students have years of age, is of the belief that the best course of action is to get as many people from Mantle onto Atlas before raising the city.

By securing the safety of Atlas, they can confirm the continued safety of all of Remnant. By keeping Atlas over Mantle and within Salem’s reach, they risk handing one of the last of humanity's strongholds over to the enemy.

This was the crux of Volume 7’s conflict, and it started out incredible. I was floored and blown away by the maturity of the conflict and the writers allowing the viewers to choose who they agreed with along the way. Unfortunately, it didn’t stay that way. Though not explicitly stated in the Volume’s final episode, it was strongly implied and shown that the writers were planning to make General Ironwood into the bad guy. Someone who couldn’t be agreed with because his belief in “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” was going too far, and he was going to turn into the Light Yagami of RWBY.

I was worried — because I was on his side morally. We will get to Volume 8 in a moment, but by this point, I was concerned.

Volume 8: The Pain of Being Proven Right

The Culmination of a Dozen Small Mistakes

One episode into Volume 8, and I feared that all of my concerns from the final episode of Volume 7 came true. The moment in which I couldn’t stomach to sit through, and was entirely unable to finish, was the second that General Ironwood pulled out his gun and shot one of the council members. If I’m honest, I ripped my headphone out so fast that I didn’t hear the whole gunshot over my own scream in rage.

This wasn't the first moment in the episode that made me stop, but it was the last moment of the episode I watched before entirely closing out of the app and considering cancelling my Prime Membership.

The man we have been shown to have commissioned an arm for Yang after the Fall of Beacon, the man who gave Winter a life she couldn’t have dreamed of before meeting him, the man who did everything in his power to save as many people as possible before Salem came and was attempting to reconnect all of Remnant to communication after Beacon Tower fell. This same man shot an innocent council member for asking questions for the sake of “at all costs.”

He did this with no reason to believe that they have been anything but on the same side as him in protecting Atlas.

Nope.

He would not. He would never even dream to. He arrested Jacques Schnee not long before, without killing him, when the man single-handedly allowed Salem's forces to get back end access into critical military information and put all remnants at risk. The only crime of either council member was that of asking what was going on when the top Specialist was in the hospital seriously injured and the leader of the Ace Ops was dead.

There is no world in which I would buy General Ironwood doing this.

The only way I can believe it is if it was to make team RWBY look “in the right” on their decisions towards the end of their time working with General Ironwood. However, the problem is that the first thing we see of team RWBY and team JNR in this episode is them repeating the same fight they had against Ironwood… internally.

Now, Ruby is basically saying the same thing Ironwood was when the whole reason they left him mere HOURS AGO was for that disagreement.

Stay Tuned For My Next Blog

In my next blog, I’ll go into the issues that arose with the Winter Maiden arc, and particularly, the systematic shafting of Winter Schnee’s development throughout the final episode.

Caitlyn C

October 30, 2020

The Importance of Time to Character Development

October 30, 2020/ Caitlyn Clendenning

Unlike my last blog, this one will not be about a single series. Instead, it will be about how a single concept (in this case, time) affected the series I will be discussing.

There will be two categories to look at “good use” and “confused use.” I don’t believe there is a point in bashing a series I don’t like; instead, I think there is a lot more to say about a series I like despite their flaws.

Good Use: Claymore

Source - Claymore norihiro yagi official art

As stated in my last blog, Shonen series are known for having these unrealistic character arcs that allow for the scrawny main character (usually a male) to train for three months and come out able to slay gods.

Claymore doesn’t have this problem. It handles both the “power grind” of its main character, Clare, and her emotional character development in perfect order with enough time to be believable and satisfying.

I will be looking at this series through two “timelines.” The first is the “compressed timeline” that consists of the events that happened after the Ghosts returned to Rabona in chapter 128 until the last chapter of the manga. The second is what I will call the “elongated timeline,” which starts at chapter one, ignores the flashbacks, and ends with the Ghosts leaving the North after the Seven Year Time Skip.

Why did these timelines work so well? Simply, it’s the difference between “story” and “plot.” Though not as egregious as Lord of the Rings, Claymore’s story and plot end separately. The story of Claymore is one of the found family and learning to put value in your life again. The plot of Claymore is revenge.

The “elongated timeline” for Claymore is developing, flesh out, and creating the story for Clare. Organically, we see her meet her friends, push them away and yet still be willing to sacrifice herself for them. We see more of Clare’s relationships during this period than we do of Clare’s revenge. We meet the four Half Awakened characters (Jean, Miria, Helen and Deneve) and we see Clare kill one of them and set her back at square one emotionally. What we don’t see is Clare coming into conflict with or even coming close to Priscilla.

The “compressed timeline” gives us the resolution to the plot in a quick, satisfying and not drawn-out manner.
The climax of the *story* happens when Miria confronts Clare about her belief that her life is worth nothing outside of her revenge, and it “ends” with Clare admitting that she wants to *live* with her found family. Then, we have the Priscilla conflict in 3 stages; Riful, Cassandra and Priscilla herself. The ending of *this* conflict would be the end of the “plot.”
If the plot had taken up every chapter of *Claymore* through just constantly meeting and failing to defeat Priscilla, it would have been more annoying than satisfying. If the “elongated timeline” had been compressed, it would have been overshadowed by the plot and left unsatisfying and mute. The ending of the anime does both of these things.

Confused Use: Vampire Knight

Source: Vampire knight published by viz media and hakusensha

By contrast, Vampire Knight does time wrong in every way. I want to clarify that I have a lot of love and nostalgia for Vampire Knight despite its flaws. This conversation is exclusive to the Anime and the comments made about Shonen Manga apply to Shojo Manga, at least as far as Vampire Knight goes.

The main issues that Vampire Knight has appeared in the second season. Vampire Knight’s plot and story are not equal in the eyes of the anime, as the love triangle between Yuki, Kaname and Zero is given more time than the conflict with Rido Kuron.

The most obvious misstep made is seen through Yuki’s awakening as the Vampire Princess. The time between Yuki turning into a Vampire, gaining her memories and her attempts to confront Rido Kuron is a few hours. Worse, the time between her remembering her childhood and her awakening is… minutes?

This means that by the time Yuki is expected to defeat Rido Kuron, she is the same person she was at the beginning of the season. As such, there is no payoff, as Yuki has to be saved by Zero despite the insinuation that she would be stronger as a Vampire. Instead, she has one shining moment of protecting the Night Class students (admittedly, it was incredibly heartwarming and the highlight of the final episodes) but is then relegated to the sidelines while the boys both save her *again*.

What should have been a season of Yuki learning her past and honing her skills as a vampire was relegated to a couple of episodes. This left the ending unsatisfying and caused Yuki to be the “damsel in distress” again. The story was left unfinished (for the hope of a 3rd season that never happened) and the plot solved by someone who had no relationship to the Kuron family and their deaths.

If Yuki had been given the chance to slowly remember her mother and father after she was turned into a vampire, we could have seen her desire for revenge drive her to train. Then, with the help of the Night Class, we could see Yuki become a critical part of the fight against Rido, killing the man who killed her parents.

Conclusion

These observations can be applied to all types of fiction. I’d be more than willing to talk about how time is used, well or poorly, in novels like the Lunar Chronicles, Ninth House, Again, but Better, and the Ash Princess trilogy if there is any interest in going into another deep dive about the use of time in novels.

I encourage you to look at your own stories and ask yourself if your timeline suits the story and plot you are telling.

Caitlyn C

October 08, 2020

How Claymore Nailed its Handling of Trauma

October 08, 2020/ Caitlyn Clendenning

Claymore is a unique manga written by Norihiro Yagi and published for the west by VIZ Media that concluded in 2014. Thanks to its age and relative lack of traction in the western audience, I find that there are far too few people who've given the manga a chance. This is a shame, because it is also one of the best examples of how to do trauma right.

This article assumes that the reader has already completed the entire manga to explain and dissect the handling of trauma in Claymore properly. It will contain a discussion of arcs that were not covered by the anime and spoilers for this incredible story's conclusion. On its surface, Claymore looks like a simple story of revenge, but calling Clare's story "simple" is an insulting underestimation of a story that I have -- up until now -- not found a match for in terms of the quality of the plot, character development and relationships developments that take place over the 155 chapter run.

Though not immediately obvious, Clare is a deeply traumatized character. The first character to point this out is Galatea, who mentions that "something happened in her past that caused her to shut down emotionally." There is no better line in the series that identifies Clare's relationship with emotion.

Clare's character development's first strength is her obvious blindness to the friendships around her and her suicidal march towards Priscilla, never being depicted as "brave" or "heroic." At worst, it is painted as childish and at best, it is painted as unhealthy and worrisome. Miria, Helen, Deneve and the other Ghosts are constantly saving her from herself, even while she runs wild without regard to their worry.

Clare's behaviour stems from a few key moments. Being the "toy" of a Yoma who used her to hide from Claymores is the first. It's implied that she remembers her family, but throughout the series, Clare thinks of them so rarely it can be inferred that her memories are not particularly strong ones. What this means for Clare is that her earliest memories and her most vivid memories of childhood are those in which she was "tormented in any way it liked" by the Yoma. Clare came out of this part of her life non-verbal, or "selectively mute" because of her trauma.

This was only compounded when the bandits attacked Clare upon being left in a village by Teresa and again when she witnessed Teresa be beheaded right in front of her. Clare is left alone to process and deal with these traumatic events repeatedly, but all she knows how to do is repress it and keep moving forward, which is how she wound up with a suicidal devotion to killing Priscilla, where other comrades didn't.

Norihiro Yagi begins to dismantle Clare's relationship with her trauma in two key moments: the first encounter with Priscilla after the Destroyer's awakening and the conversation before the final battle of the Ghosts versus Priscilla.

After almost getting her friends killed, Clare cannot awaken to kill Priscilla, which she believes is her sole reason for living. Instead, what Deneve calls "Jean's Big Wedge" pulls Clare back over to humanity, saving her from awakening and giving Deneve and Helen just enough time to save Clare and escape. This is the first time that we begin to see that Clare has put value in life outside of her revenge, as it is Jean’s friendship and sacrifice that ultimately saves her. Moreover, Helen and Deneve prove in this moment that there are people alive who want to protect Clare and see her live on.

The second time is when Clare is just freed of the "blob" that had absorbed her. For the first time, Clare finally tells the Seven Ghosts what Teresa meant to her and that she believes her sole reason for living is to kill Priscilla. Miria, someone Clare looks up to as a "big sister" and has been saved by countless times, calmly asks if none of them matter to her. Her words to Clare, about what she means to them and her revenge have been replaced by their collective fight with Priscilla both surprises and frustrates Clare. Miria and the other Ghosts have decided to fight the strongest being alive together for themselves and for what she took from Clare.

Clare is shown that her solo revenge is gone when she fails to awaken to kill Priscilla because of her friendship with Jean, and then it is shown that she has friends who love her and will fight to give Clare peace. Clare accepts their help and is granted life after Priscilla's death thanks to her friends. This is an outcome she had never expected for herself, but when her friends praise her and celebrate the battle they won, Clare is not upset to be alive.

She will have more to work through after the series is over; Norihiro Yagi never says that killing Priscilla cure's Clare's PTSD and Childishness, but she is not doing it alone. Claymore, at the end of the day, handles trauma in the best way possible. You do not have to fight your battles alone and pushing those who love you away will only cause both of you pain.

Caitlyn C

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The Analysis of Character

The Victims of Poor Development - Part 2: Winter Schnee

V7: The First Steps Towards Darkness Part 2

The Winter Maiden

Volume 8: Wishing I Wasn't Right

Someone Show Penny the Door

Conclusion

Caitlyn C

The Victims of Poor Development - Part 1: Ironwood

V7: The First Steps Towards Darkness

The General Ironwood Mistake

Volume 8: The Pain of Being Proven Right

The Culmination of a Dozen Small Mistakes

Stay Tuned For My Next Blog

Caitlyn C

The Importance of Time to Character Development

Good Use: Claymore

Confused Use: Vampire Knight

Conclusion

Caitlyn C

How Claymore Nailed its Handling of Trauma

Caitlyn C

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