RWBY – Volume 3 Chapter 10
Mobile spawn point coming through.
The Grimm invasion continues…
Chaos and Destruction
Evil robot alert.
All hell breaks loose as the Grimm, led by the White Fang forces, gradually overrun Beacon and Vale. It’s still not explained how the White Fang can essentially control the Grimm, as the creatures do not appear to attack any members of the radical group. And it’s not as if the Grimm simply do not attack faunus, as we see them attacking helpless faunus civilians alongside other humans. But whatever means the White Fang are using to avoid the attention of the Grimm, it is sure to be a powerful tool. Think about it. If settlers who try to establish new towns and communities beyond the walls of the main cities had this power or tool, mankind could essentially spread all across the world of Remnant without fear of being attacked by the Grimm. Meanwhile, the skies are apparently controlled by Roman, denying the ground forces any air support. I find it a bit hard to believe that one ship can effectively take down the entire Atlesian fleet, or at least hold them at bay. I mean, we saw Roman taking down two Atlesian ships last time because he had the element of surprise. But how did he deal with all the other ships that Ironwood brought with him? Because I’m pretty sure Ironwood brought way more than just three ships. And finally for the cherry on top, the Atlesian robots have been infected with Cinder’s virus, turning them against the remaining defenders. This was a fairly obvious development, and is well in line with Cinder’s strategy of taking away the powers of her adversaries or targets. But I have to think that it’s only a matter of time before someone (maybe Penny’s creator) realizes that Cinder is taking control of all these systems through a virus and develops a countermeasure. So I’m not too concerned about the turning of the Atlesian robots for now.
Impending confrontation.
Obviously, things are looking quite dire. And as it stands, I’m really not sure if the heroes can prevail against the overwhelming forces at Cinder’s disposal. So I’m expecting that some super powerful weapon or tool be conveniently introduced for use against the large number of Grimm. Maybe it’s the power of the maidens, who all gather to fight the Grimm (minus half of the fall maiden). Or maybe Ozpin’s tower houses some crazy time-based weapon. Who knows? I’m also expecting the aforementioned reconversion of the Atlesian robots and a potential change of heart from Adam to even the numbers between the good guys and the bad guys. But to be honest, I’m not exactly holding my breath on the latter. The coming confrontation between Blake and Adam is sure to be an emotional one, and I’m pretty sure it will eventually come down to the two old friends trading blows. But even if Blake wins, I can’t see her convincing Adam to join her side and bring the White Fang forces with him. Just about the only thing I can see doing that at this point is a revelation that Cinder was planning to betray the White Fang in some way. Like perhaps her plan includes having the Grimm turn on the White Fang and wipe them out as well. But she just doesn’t appear to have any motive to do such a thing from what we’ve seen so far.
New Things
A fitting weapon.
Before I leave off, I’d like to touch base on a couple more important details in this chapter. First up is Ironwood’s weapon. We finally see him in combat, and he appears to wield a simple revolver. The artwork during the ending sequence reveals it to be a six shooter with two triggers. The purpose of the second trigger remains to be seen. And if you pay attention, Ironwood actually shoots seven shots in a row without being shown reloading. So it’s possible that the chambers in the cylinder actually correspond to different types of dust which Ironwood can shoot as many times as he wants. Perhaps, then, the purpose of the second trigger is to revolve the cylinder to whichever dust chamber Ironwood wants to fire from. Additionally, I believe that Ironwood’s weapon is the first one we’ve seen which is purely a firearm. His revolver does not appear to serve as a kind of melee weapon (though I’m sure the ‘ol pistol whip is a viable option), with Ironwood relying solely on his own physical abilities in hand-to-hand combat. Next, we have the introduction of the Grimm dragon. Despite its dramatic entrance, there’s really not too much to say about it at this point. It’s just a much larger kind of Grimm, and it also spawns smaller Grimms from black orbs that fall off it. Nothing that we haven’t seen in other media before. The interesting thing, though, is that the Grimm dragon was apparently trapped or sealed under a mountain. Or perhaps it simply dwells underground and just so happened to emerge from the mountain. Whatever the case, this giant, mobile spawn point for the Grimm is going to be a priority target for the heroes, as they certainly could do without an endless supply of enemies being air-dropped on their heads.
We’ve entered the all-out warfare leg of the volume, but there’s still a lot of unresolved plot threads hanging around. The matter of Yang’s mother is one of the bigger ones. And despite her introduction in the previous volume, she’s remained out of sight in this volume so far. Given the severity of the situation at Beacon and Vale though, I have to think that she’d be called back to help defend against the Grimm threat. Unless whatever mission she’s currently on is more important than that. The issue of the seasonal maidens and Pyrrha’s inheritance of the fall maiden’s powers is also an elephant in the room. But fortunately, the cliffhanger here suggests that we might get around to this pretty soon. And with Jaune running after her as she makes her way to Ozpin, we can be sure that we are in for a bumpy ride on the feels train. This chapter definitely focused very strongly on the action, but I think the coming chapters will have a much stronger focus on character relationships to balance things out. Whatever happens though, I’m sure that we’re not quite done with bad things happening to the characters we know and love. Here’s hoping they don’t get broken down too much.
What is Pyrrha’s play?
About Sumairii
