RWBY Volume 3.08

It’s chapter 8 of RWBY and it’s time to face the consequences of bullshit illusion trickery and leg punching so let’s get right into it and break down the story.

Story

The episode opens with Ironwood lecturing Team RWBY in their dorm room about Yang assaulting Mercury. He apparently doesn’t believe Yang’s story about Mercury attacking her but he does think she was just under stress and hallucinated the attack. He tells the team they’ve been disqualified and departs. Yang then asks the rest of the team if they believe her. Weiss and Ruby do but Blake is doubtful, relating Adam’s slippery slope into villainy as the reason why. She does say though that if Yang looks her in the eyes and says that what happened that she will trust her. Yang does as she’s asked with Blake agreeing to trust her and the group leaving Yang alone in the room to rest.

Out in the hallway Ruby, Weiss, and Blake are joined by Team JNPR who are concerned about Yang. Ruby says that Yang is holding up as well as she can, adding that Mercury and his team can’t be questioned about the incident because they went home to Haven Ren tells them that if they need any help that they will give it to them to which Ruby asks Pyrrha to win the tournament for Beacon as it is what Yang would want. Pyrrha agrees and Team RWBY departs.

Nora and Ren attempt in different ways to prep Pyrrha for her match before Jaune jumps in and convinces the group to go for a walk instead. We then cut to Yang as she watches Team JNPR taking their walk. Qrow appears in the room and asks her why she did it with Yang replying that she didn’t. Qrow adds that she’s either lying or crazy. Yang then reveals that she saw her mother Raven after she saved her from Neo (Back in Volume 2.11). Qrow confirms that it was her and reveals that Raven gave him a message to give to Yang: that she saved her once but that she shouldn’t expect it again. Qrow then reveals that he has some information that could help Yang track if she’s interested.

Outside, Pyrrha sits on the ground and reflects on Fall Maiden situation when Jaune comes up to her with a thing of cotton candy. Jaune sees that she is troubled and tells her how she’s the first person to believe in him and how she’s always there for him and how he wants to returns the favor, asking her how he can help. Pyrrha who was somewhat flustered because he was touching her hand while doing this thanks him and says that he’s already doing it, laying her head on his shoulder. Pyrrha’s mind remains troubled though and asks Jaune if he believes in destiny. Pyrrha says that she doesn’t think of destiny as some predetermined fate but instead as a final goal to work towards. She asks him what he would do if something came up that got in the way of someone achieving their destiny or if you could achieve your destiny instantaneously at the cost of who you were. Jaune is confused and asks her whats going on to which Pyrrha states that she always thought that her destiny was to become a huntress and is increasingly sure that she is right about that but she isn’t sure if she can do it. Jaune tells her that the Pyrrha he knows would never back down from a challenge and that she should complete her destiny no matter what. This upsets Pyrrha and when a confused Jaune goes to comfort her she unconsciously throws him into the wall with her magnetism power. Horrified at what she just did Pyrrha takes off and leaves Jaune wondering what he said that made her react the way she did.

At the airport Ruby finds Velvet taking pictures of Sun. Velvet offers Ruby her condolences about Yang and says that if an experienced fighter like Coco can hallucinate in battle than so can Yang. Ruby is confused by this as Velvet relates Coco seeing Yatsuhari in the woods in their match with Emerald and Mercury when he never made it out of the geyser fields.

We then cut to the arena as Ruby sits down to watch a match when she spots Emerald in the crowd, seeing Emerald apparently spot her she quickly departs the stands into a maintenance tunnel where she’s intercepted by Mercury. They then hear over the announcements that Penny will be fighting Pyrrha in the tournament with Ruby realizing with horror what will happen to Penny when Pyrrha uses her polarity powers on her. Mercury taunts her over this and prepares to fight her. The episode ends with Penny and a still conflicted Pyrrha in the ring getting ready to fight.

Analysis

I think I know why the villains have been really successful in their plans, because apparently the people opposing them are idiots. Seriously, I don’t know how much Ozpin and company know about the opposition aside from them having infiltrated the school but apparently someone with illusion powers is a concept that’s too confusing for them. So unless they were just lying to Yang to throw her off (In which case what the hell!?) it makes total sense that Cinder’s team is continuously gaining ground while Ozpin’s team is gaining none.

This episode just exacerbated my issues from Chapter 6 as the fact that apparently no one on Ozpin’s team figured out that there were conflicting stories about the Mercury incident and at least entertained the thought that maybe Cinder’s team was up to something. Also Qrow has seen Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury so why he wouldn’t determine that this was a ploy is very confusing to me.

Other than that this was a good episode. Blake and Team JNPR finally came back into focus for a little bit and we got some nice character moments between Pyrrha and Jaune. Also Ruby finally discovered learned that Emerald and Mercury are villains so, Progress at last!!!

Miscellaneous

• So ignoring that maybe people don’t know that Emerald can do illusions, Team RWBY saw Neo using her illusion powers and she’s still at large so why has no one put two and two together?
• So I’m unclear if Raven is a villain or anti-hero since Qrow described her in terms that make it seem like she’s helping the heroes but not in ways they approve. We haven’t really had any anti-hero characters on the show yet so this will be interesting to see.

Originally published at deathmaster780.kinja.com.