I rewatched Ironwood vs Watts and realized, once again, that James sacrificing his arm was in fact completely avoidable, pointless, and more of a misguided show of strength than any kind of intelligent decision.
And I’m not talking about the fight as a whole (although that’s also true). I’m not talking about the fact he went in alone, even though there were so many people who could have provided backup. Even though one sniper from the entire Atlas Military was all it would have taken to tip the scales.
I’m talking about one very small decision on James’s part that hurt no one but himself at that moment.
When Watts traps James with the hard light display from his rings, the rings are still completely exposed.
James literally could have just crushed or damaged one of the rings to free himself, taking maybe twenty seconds longer with absolutely no maiming necessary.
If James had done anything other than what the bad guy wanted him to, nothing needed to be lost.
Looking back over Volumes 6 and 7, something I feel is pretty interesting is how Ozpin and Ironwood are effectively painted as two sides of the same coin by the narrative when it comes to their strengths and flaws.
For Ozpin, no matter how much insight he had on the human condition and how his humanist ideologies of compassion, understanding and empathy, and how much he wanted to help all of humanity, I think it’s pretty clear that his actual idea of how to deal with Salem was very much the WRONG one. His plan was to effectively delay Salem indefinitely, with an ingrained, unshakable assumption that Salem cannot be fought directly. Also, Ozpin’s idea of fighting Salem in the shadows only seems to have backfired, with Ozpin and his followers keeping untold secrets from the rest of the world, all while Ozpin keeps more secrets from even his closest allies. This gradually erodes and destroys the trust those allies have in him as we saw in Volume 6, and also keeps humanity unaware of the threat to them and makes it all the easy for Salem to keep humanity divided and turn them against each other.
In short, Ozpin has the right philosophy, but the wrong idea of how to deal with Salem.
And in Volume 7, we see that Ironwood is the flipside to that coin.
By all rights, Ironwood has the right idea. He wants to take the fight to Salem directly and put an end to her once and for all. Not only that, Ironwood wants to reveal her existence to the world, shine a spotlight on her as the true enemy of mankind and unite humanity against the common enemy to all. But at the same time, Ironwood’s ideology is horribly flawed. In contrast to Ozpin’s humanist ideologies, Ironwood’s beliefs are entirely militant. He believes that simple military might will win the day, and also believes whole-heartedly that ‘the ends justify the means’ and ‘any sacrifice is worth it’. We see in Ironwoods conversations with Oscar that he considers his own humanity to be a weakness that can be exploited. He pretty much views Mantle as dead weight and is ready to cut the whole city loose as a sacrifice to what he believes is the ‘greater good’.
Basically, Ozpin had the Wrong Idea, but the Right Ideology. And Ironwood has the Right Idea, but the Wrong Ideology.
And it is between these two sides that I believe Team RWBY falls, and in particular Ruby herself.
I think it’s clear that Ruby is the one that has the Right Idea and the Right Ideology. Like Ironwood, she is staunchly determined to battle the evil that Salem represents and end the threat she poses to humanity. But like Ozpin, Ruby is an equally firm believer in the importance of keeping hold of our humanity and all that entails. I think we can see this most clearly in how Ruby has come into conflict with both men, with Ozpin in Volume 6 and Ironwood in Volume 7.
Finally, I think there is one specific quality Ruby possesses that sets her apart from both Ironwood and Ozpin and allows her to be this: Her Defiant Optimism.
Both Ozpin and Ironwood both seem to possess these cynical assumptions about the conflict against Salem: Ozpin believes that Salem cannot be destroyed and Ironwood seems to believe that great sacrifices must be made to ensure victory.
The Ironwood Fixers: Parallels in Ruby’s and Oscar’s Actions in V3 and V7
It’s striking how Oscar’s actions at the end of V7 parallel Ruby’s actions at the start of the Battle of Beacon in V3. Both incidents begin with the exact same pincer manuever on the part of Salem’s forces, a ground attack by the Grimm occurring simultaneously with the reveal that Cinder has corrupted a crucial system of Ironwood’s defenses; at the Vytal Festival the compromised system is Ironwood’s computers, in Atlas it’s Ironwood’s brain.
In the ensuing panic at Amity Arena Ruby and Team JNPR flee to a shuttle. In the ensuing panic at Atlas Academy Oscar and Team JNR flee to a shuttle.
But at the last minute Ruby/Oscar turn back into the teeth of danger to try to fix Ironwood’s problem.
They go to the heart of Ironwood’s power. At Beacon it’s his flagship; at Atlas, it’s the Vault of the Winter Maiden. Here, Ruby tries to save the ship, and Oscar tries to save the man. Both antagonists first express disbelief at the hero’s mission.
“Little Red, little Red, you are just determined to be the hero of Vale, aren'tcha?”
“Do you intend to fight me?”
(It doesn’t quite come through in these screenshots, but the strong vertical line pattern on the top of the ship is the same as the strong vertical line pattern on the floor of the Vault. I wondered why the Vault floor looked like a landing strip.)
Then both heroes are informed by their antagonists that they have greatly underestimated the scope of the problem.
“You’re asking the wrong questions, Red! It’s not what I have to gain, it’s that I can’t afford to lose!”
“You still think I’m afraid?”
Both Torchwick and Ironwood are terrified of Salem, and consequently both men feel trapped. Because they feel trapped, both men lash out.
“Like it or not, the people that hired me are going to change the world! You can’t stop ‘em, I can’t stop 'em!”
“You can label me whatever you’d like, but the fact of the matter is I was right! The minute I softened, let my guard down, that’s when Salem had her opening.”
Both men accuse our heroes of not understanding how “the real world” drives them to the actions they have taken, thus trying to deny responsibility for their part in the deeds going down at that moment.
“You got spirit, Red. But this is the real world! The real world is cold! The real world doesn't care about spirit!”
“All excellent philosophical points that won’t matter if Salem wins.”
Then both men proceed to state their goal.
“You wanna be a hero? Then play the part and die like every other Huntsman in history! As for me, I’ll do what I do best: lie, steal, cheat, and SURVIVE!”
“I am done letting others’ inability to see the big picture get in the way of doing what’s right. Robyn, the council, this kingdom… even you.”
(When I started this essay I thought I was going to have to gloss over the actual confrontations, but when I looked at the quotes I realized that in his more upper-class speech mannerisms Ironwood echoed Torchwick point for point.)
Shortly thereafter, both our heroes fall, only to be saved by their weapon-based landing strategies. And about the same time, both our antagonists are thwarted in their goals by a supernatural force, Torchwick by a Nevermore and Ironwood by the Winter Maiden.
Oscar failed in his reason for turning back. But in the chaos of the Battle of Beacon, it’s possible to overlook that Ruby also failed in her primary reason for turning back. She wasn’t able to liberate the flagship, but it’s destruction freed the robots from Watts’ virus. Likewise, while Oscar is unable to liberate Ironwood from the General’s crippling terror, his actions free Ozpin from his self-imposed exile.
And in both cases those are well-timed moves, because the very next thing that happens is that the third arm of Salem’s pincer manuever shows up, her air support.
Oscar’s confrontation with Ironwood also parallels Ruby’s confrontation with Raven at the Battle of Haven, so I’ll discuss that in my next post. But let me make one last point. In Ruby’s confrontation with Torchwick he reveals that his actions are based on his conclusion that Salem will win no matter what he does. If Ironwood also concludes that Salem will win no matter what he does and acts accordingly, events will take a very dark turn.
Note: This post has been edited to comply with Tumblr’s photo limit. To see all the pics, go here: http://aminoapps.com/p/kicxzq
Rwby fndm really looked at vol 7, saw the message that “dictatorships are bad”, and said “what the hell?? Crwby, this is bad writing!!”
Robyn has gotten tons of crap for being a “Criminal”, even though her big Crime was taking the Recources Her city needed to not die. Wich were being taken by Ironwood
Meanwhile the man who is trying to sacrifice the rest of the world to save his own city, shoots a teenager and created a dictatorship cause he couldn’t comprehend the idea he might have been wrong and Ozpin was right. Is the unsung hero who’s just getting crap for making the “Reasonable decisions”.
It’s so frustrating how the volume starts off with this banger, and then they decide to say “fuck you” to this moment and make Qrow a prick to James the whole time.
Like we couldn’t just have James and Qrow have a “complicated but still trying to understand each other” relationship? They just had to quickly do a u-turn on his hug and pretend that it never happened.
I don’t care what anybody says about James, this moment was so hot. He’s so strong. He stopped a whole beast - he didn’t need to use a giant statue to kill it.
And as stupid as they look flying off, he stopped them with enough force to send Winter and Oscar flying off. This man is a tank and its terrifying how strong he is.
They really do look so dumb! It looks like the animators just hoped they flew off the screen fast enough for nobody to notice how stiff they looked.
But this is why I really love James. He doesn’t need to rely on weird powers or clunky weapons to be strong. He just is strong, and actually uses his brain in combat. He really was the black sheep of the cast and he was best boi.
I don’t care what anybody says about James, this moment was so hot. He’s so strong. He stopped a whole beast - he didn’t need to use a giant statue to kill it.
