A lot of people on social media have claimed that Adam Taurus was “Retconned” into being an abusive ex, and that he was “meant to be” a freedom fighter and an anti-hero.
In this post, we’ll look into Adam’s actions and words throughout the show, and discuss instead how Miles and Kerry remained consistent with Adam’s character.
In the black trailer we see Adam working Blake. Right now this doesn’t really imply anything on their relationship .Just that they are working together. The initial plan seems to just be to steal the cargo on the train. When Adam says he will set the charges Blake shows concern about civilian passengers and crew being caught in the explosion. Adam says “What about them?” This shows he doesn’t care about any bystanders as long as he finishes what he is set out to do. At this point we still don’t know what that is. It also shows that Blake had no clue about the explosives. If the plan was to always blow up the train then Blake wouldn’t need to express concern for passengers if she knew it was always going to be demolished. Adam also used Blake as a distraction for him to destroy the spider tank which we never see again.
In volume one I don’t believe Adam is even mentioned. I could be wrong. Blake just talks about the WF but not Adam himself. Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong.
In volume two Blake mentions how Adam started the trend of wearing Grimm masks to ‘dawn the faces of monsters that some people make them out to be.’ Then she talks about him at the campfire and actually name drops him here. She explains how his vision of a perfect world isn’t the perfect world for others. This shows where Blake started to distrust him and puts Adam in the perception of possibly being misunderstood in his goals. Then she drops the line of ‘When I found out my oldest partner had turned into a monster I ran!’. At this point Adam has did some very ill moral things according to Blake. The train heist was the last straw when he was willing to kill people there who had nothing to do with faunus oppression. Then we finally see Adam at the very end of the volume. Here he shows no remorse for any of his brothers in arms and simply states that the group will continue to listen to him. This paints his goal as fighting for faunus rights extremely questionable.
In volume 3 we have a flashback to when Cinder tries to recruit him. At first he refuses to work for any human regardless of what they could offer him. We learn this is before the train heist were Blake runs. Then we see after the heist where Adam says not to worry about Blake and that they need to return to Mistral. Most likely to report back to Sienna about the train heist. At this point he only lost control of Blake but is still in control of the WF Vale branch. He isn’t obsessed with her. Cinder then returns after getting half the maiden power and decimates his camp. She then offer’s him dust and lien in payment for his services. Adam does not turn down her offer. He is now compromising his own convictions by working with a human he refused earlier. If he was truly the revolutionary that a lot of people paint him as at this point then he would have fought Cinder and never partner with her. It doesn’t matter that he would have been outmatched he would have died a martyr with his convictions intact. Later on the volume Blake talks about Adam again, not naming him this time. Saying that she got close to him and how he slowly changed and how he kept making excuses for getting more and more violent. This is where the abuse starts to become more apparent. Just because Blake called Adam a mentor in V2 does not mean she also wasn’t romantically involved with him. Being one doesn’t make the other impossible. She also trusts her team a lot more to divulge something incredibly personal to her. Then we have the fall of Beacon. Adam was not hunting down Blake. They just happened to run into each other. Adams goal was never to hunt down Blake, but when she showed up he took the opportunity. Adam lays on thick how much her betrayal actually hurt him. And declares that he will take that pain and direct back at Blake buy killing everything she loves and holds dear. Then Yang attacks and loses her arm because lost her cool and launched and extremely telegraphed attack that Adam took advantage of. Blake used her semblance to escape with Yang and Adam continued to kill the people around him, and some Grimm, since that is what he was paid for. He was less of a revolutionary here and more of a mercenary for Cinder in my opinion.
So, from what I’ve seen Adam’s character didn’t really change. We hear what Adam said he was for, but then we see him act differently by ignoring his convictions to his cause and pulling in people that would help him kill humans, or blow up more schools. From here on he craved more control and since Sienna didn’t agree with how the WF should proceed he decided to take over. Nothing about this character screams ‘ruined’ character to me. He wanted the Belladonnas killed because they were getting in his way. He killed Sienna for getting in his way.
Blake took away his control and his image. He chased her for revenge. He wanted to make her suffer for his loss. “Why can’t you leave me alone?” was more of him saying “Why do you keep standing in my way?”
Could they have gone a different route with him? Sure. But the same could be said for every other character. Since shopkeeper isn’t some Vale underground info broker who uses a dust shop as as front I guess he could be a ‘ruined’ character to since that is also very interesting. People need to let people have their opinions. Some people don’t like how Adam turned out, and that’s fine. Other’s like how he was a foil to Blake and then to Yang. That’s fine too. But don’t attack people for liking/not liking the other’s opinion. And don’t attack the writers saying they can’t write a good character. They just didn’t write what you wanted in character. This does not make them bad writers. It just means they didn’t write something that you prefer. Everything is subjective. That’s the nuance of story telling. Some people will enjoy the story shown while others won’t. Doesn’t make the story bad. It just means it didn’t appeal to one of the groups.
They didn’t ruin his character, he was always that way, people just head-canoned him into their edgy abused/neglected power fantasy character and were upset when he ended up going to the logical conclusion of his character arc.
That’s always what his character was. An obsessive self entitled maniac that felt that he deserves the world because he suffered, and everyone else was in the wrong.
He was always that character and wasn’t poorly written for that type of character. He was rather realistic actually. If you wanted him to be a different type of character that’s fine if you’re writing a fanfic, but this is always how his character was.
I believe in keeping with RWBY’s preference for subverting tropes, Adam is an Ill-intentioned extremist version of the “White Male Savior” typically common in anime, tv shows, and movies.
Side note….Adam cut off Yang’s arm…why do people keep saying that Yang had no reason to fight Adam compared to Weiss, when A) Blake was Yang’s partner, B) Yang lost an arm due to Adam, and C) Adam and Yang had similar yet different semblances?
All good points, and I feel something else should be noted as well:
Blake’s arc, as Volume 1 makes clear, is that she is displeased with the extremist direction the White Fang has taken, which led to her defection and becoming a Huntress. She doesn’t view the group as inherently bad; rather, she sees them as “misguided” in their current approach.
And what instigated her defection? Adam’s desire to murder the innocent people aboard the train they were robbing. An extremist act that Blake could not condone.
From the very beginning, Adam was established as the antagonist in Blake’s arc. He was the person who represented the worst of the White Fang, the catalyst for Blake’s resolution to change her path and find a better way to help people.
The real twist to Adam’s character isn’t even the fact that he is a bad person, because his willingness to kill innocent people for no gain and to throw away the lives of the Faunus who followed him showed that all too well.
The real twist of Adam’s character was that he never actually represented the White Fang. The real twist is that Adam is revealed to be someone motivated purely by spite and hatred, anger and wrath. While Blake believed he went as far as he did to further the White Fang’s cause, he’s ultimately revealed to care nothing for his fellow Faunus, only in hurting humans. He doesn’t care if other Faunus live or die. He doesn’t care if Cinder and her minions harm the soldiers under him. Adam didn’t fight for the White Fang’s cause; Adam used the White Fang as a weapon for his own cause, without concern for the damage it suffered as a result.
And the hostility to the role he represents when it comes to the subjects and themes the White Fang arc includes is down to the fact that most of the people who attack the show based on his role are ultimately the exact same kind of people as Adam himself: claiming to be fighting for a cause when in reality they only want to spite and hurt those whom they believe deserve it.
Very true @lilithfairen, and yet for standing against Adam, BLAKE was called a terrorist by people calling themselves writers, and claiming that she was just as bad as Adam
Or that by trying to talk things out with Robyn, Blake was being a “terrorist” and “war criminal?”
The sheer hatred of RWBY Critics towards Blake and their love for toxic male characters is disturbing.
Not adding anything, because I can’t think of anything that hasn’t already been said. Because it very much is a discussion of his character at point A remaining the same as it reached point B.
