Honestly my knee jerk reaction to the latest rwby ep was ‘so uhhh hey,,, blake,,,, what happened to that lesson on forgiveness and shit you learned last volume huh??? Or did that only matter because it was ilia,,,’ like, I WANT so badly to believe that there was a reason this was handled so poorly but
Y’know
I’ve heard some fans voice opinions of the CRWBY Writers creating quote, unquote, ‘unnecessary drama’ where it wasn’t warranted by having the whole Oz vs. QROWBY
debacle. For me I more saw it as a matter of the CRWBY Writers wanting to have their cake
and eat it too in a way.
They wanted
to delve into the growing tension between Ozpin and the team over the secrets
he’s been hiding given the seeds of suspicion planted by characters like Raven Branwen as a tie in from last season while having an excuse
to give us a full-blown exposition episode diving into Ozpin’s past to satisfy
the Ozpinheads who have been curious about that since V1 while additionally
revealing more about the Relic of Knowledge all to culminate in Ozpin being
taken out of the story temporarily.
For
the most part, I’m not mad at how
the CRWBY chose to execute this at all. From a storytelling perspective and as
an audience member, I loved how the CRWBY Writers handled revealing Ozpin’s
story and showing the Relic and all that jazz.
I’m
not even mad that the QROWBY were upset with Oz after the reveal. I expected
some characters to be upset at the news that Oz has been sitting on the secret
that Salem is immortal and can’t be killed for so long without telling anyone.
I get their anger particularly Qrow’s.
I mean Raven basically told everyone the
truth last season but no one believed her since they focused on her siding with
the enemy. Qrow even disowned his own
sister and left his own tribe—his family because as he rightfully said to Oz,
he believed he was doing good with his life since Oz led him to believe that
they were fighting for a good cause. A means to an end; not an impossible feat.
So
to learn that you’ve basically spent most of your adulthood fighting against an
enemy who in reality can’t be stopped—all those times Qrow risked his life
against Salem and her forces thinking that he was contributing towards
something that had an end while in reality it didn’t…and Oz knew this the
entire time and still led Qrow on with his false optimism. As much as I despised that scene
where Qrow punched Ozpin through Oscar, when I look back on it and really consider Qrow’s part in this, I start to understand where his
frustration was coming from.
…However at the same time…I still didn’t
like it and even now; I still don’t think Oz deserved what he got from the team.
I expected one or two people to be upset but I was hopeful that there would’ve
been at least one
person among the heroes who would’ve
assessed everything and saw the bigger picture.
As
I mentioned in another
response post, Salem’s invincibility is not the whole picture. It’s not even the biggest part of
it. I was hoping that at least one person on the team would’ve seen that. At
least one person would’ve accessed everything and come to some semblance of
understanding as to why Oz did things the way he did.
Quite
frankly, I was hoping for that person to be Ruby Rose. And in a way, I’d like
to believe that Ruby wasn’t all that upset with Oz. While her facial expression
was stern, what I liked was that she didn’t attack Ozpin like her family did.
What I liked is that Ruby sort of extended an olive branch to Ozpin by asking him what his plans were stop Salem knowing the
truth.
It’s
just…unfortunate that, for the first time, Oz—the man usually with
all the answers—didn’t have an answer to this question and it was painful to see him break from having to confess that sad truth.
One
thing that’s also been bothering me is the fact that everyone neglects the detail
where Jinn’s revelation was as much as eye opener for Ozpin as it was for everyone else. Remember Ozma was
primarily dead for the first fall of humanity. Neither Salem nor even the God of
Light informed Ozma about the destruction of mankind by Salem’s influence and
the God of Darkness. When Salem reunited with Ozma in his second life, she
blamed the end of the world on the Gods without disclosing the detail that she
had caused it. I don’t even recall the God of Light informing
Ozma that Salem caused the end of humanity when they met in-between worlds.
From
the time her was reincarnated, Ozma moved without knowing the whole truth about what killed humanity and he’s probably spent
his lifetimes not knowing this detail; only choosing to believe what he was
told by both the God of Light and Salem.
Ozpin never knew that Salem sacrificed humanity the first time which is why he must
feel like shit now because he’s the one that basically told Salem about the
Relics and the God’s Judgment in the first place. Ironically, the onetime Ozpin
told the whole truth, he unintentionally became
responsible for providing the world’s biggest threat with the knowledge to
bring about its destruction.
There
are different ways this reveal could’ve been looked at. Best 2/3, Ozpin is more
the victim in all of this than he is the culprit. If you ignore his whole history
with Salem, the only relevant wrong thing that Ozpin did was not tell anyone
else that Salem can’t be killed.
That’s
it. That’s the only truly bad thing he did wrong since that’s the part the
QROWBY seems to be focusing on right now, despite the fact that Ozpin’s
reasoning behind holding onto that secret could be justified. I’d like to
believe that part of Ozpin’s motive was keeping Salem’s nature under wraps was because
he wanted to hold onto hope. Hope that humanity can be saved. Hope that
a solution to ending Salem would come his way. Just because he didn’t find one
doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Plus let’s not forget that even after learning
the truth, Oz still went ahead and did his best to bring peace to humanity.
He
stopped the Great War as the King of Vale, founded the huntsmen academies to
train the huntsmen as Remnant’s protectors. Look at all the good Oz has done in spite of the hopeless cause he was
fighting for.
I
wanted so much for someone to simply ask Ozpin why he still chose to fight
despite knowing that it’s for a fruitless cause. What gave him the hope to keep moving forward
or rather who gave him hope?
Instead,
everyone just focused on the one—the part about Salem which annoyed me
since—seriously?
You just saw Oz’s entire past and the ONLY thing you took from that is the ending? My
problem is that everyone is just focusing on the one part about Salem without
seeing the full picture.
I’m
not mad at Blake or Weiss since neither thankfully said anything
after the reveal— anything to accost Ozpin which I’m grateful for.
It’s
been three days since V6 C4 dropped and I still stand by my initial judgment
where Oz didn’t deserve what he got from the QROWBY especially from Qrow. We
can keep having this talk till the moon falls out of the sky but my part in it
still stands. I understand the QROWBY’s reasoning for being angry; it’s just
that I also don’t think Oz deserved the flack he got.
The
QROWBY could’ve chosen to see this problem one of two ways—either focus on
the small part where Ozpin lied about the nature of Salem or see the whole
picture which shows that while Salem is immortal, that’s not the biggest
problem. The bigger problem is what would happen if she got her hands on the
Relics and summoned the Gods back to current Remnant which is on the brink of
war. A war which Salem sparked after breaking the peace Oz and his incarnates
spent years trying to build and uphold.
Rather
than allowing himself to give up and fall into a depression, Oz chose to stand
and fight. He could’ve stopped. Here is a man who knows he is up against an
unstoppable foe yet he pressed on. He did his best with the hand he was dealt
and he’s still playing the game. Oz is still trying to save
humanity. He still has hope and for what it’s worth, I hope the other heroes will
come to see that.
This
is why I’m glad Maria is there. No pun intended but, she could be the fresh eyes in all this, not to mention the one to douse Yang’s hot-headedness.
Still annoyed at how much of a hypocrite Yang is being. Her beef with Ozpin
reminds me of her beef with Blake from last season—how she was still angry at
her for running away without trying to understand why
she did it. To put herself in Blake’s shoes and look at the problem through her
eyes rather than just only judge her from her point of view.
Everyone
needs to individually sit down and access this revelation and come to their own
understanding of everything, asking themselves not how Oz could do such a
thing. But why?
And when I say why, I mean why he never gave up? He knows Salem is
unbeatable. He knows she can’t be killed. So then why?
Why continue
to fight a never-ending war? Why continue to fight to save humanity from an unbeatable
foe? Why try at all?
I
hope someone comes to this way of thinking and asks these questions. What would
be interesting is if the QROWMBY is paired off with each other so that they
could each offer their own opinions on the topic at hand?
We can have Maria with Qrow and Yang because
I think the pocket
abuelita has the right level headed
nature to handle and help these two hot heads with the patience to boot. Blake could pair off with Weiss. It’d be nice to have the Checkmate
pair together again, not to mention that Weiss could touch base with Blake on
what Yang went through when she was away.
And
of course, you know me with my Rosegardening apple double snickerdoodles, definitely
want the Rosebuds: Ruby and Oscar to be paired off and alone together to have
another nice chat like last time. After the mess that transpired last episode, I’m anticipating Ruby checking in on Oscar a lot in C5 especially now that he is alone without Oz which must be saddening for the poor boy.
I don’t mind if the pairs alternate over time so that everyone
can get a chance to discuss Ozpin with each other and hear all sides but…for
now, I’m hoping it starts off with that. This is the best opportunity to have
an episode where characters can just talk.
I
know the consensus is that fans didn’t enjoy that about V5 but with everything
that the last four episodes of V6 dished out, we need a
nice little pause
episode that just focuses on
developing the character relationships right now.
We
know more action is expected to come on the horizon which is why I wouldn’t
mind if the QROWMBY just chilled for
the next episode and just talked to one another. But that’s just me.
Cadet-For-Your-SpaceRescue 