RWBY – Volume 3 Chapter 11
Velvet’s weapon in action.
The battle rages on…
Adam and Cinder
Weiss partially summons the golem.
RWBY plays a rather convenient card by disabling Ironwood’s rogue robot army when his ship crashes. It feels like a bit of a cop out, and moreover, I’m actually surprised that the robots depend on a sort of main control center to even function. I always figured that they operated independently as self-contained units. The most I might have believed is that one could remotely send a shut-down command to all units from a main control center or with the proper signal. But regardless of how I thought they worked, this is what actually happens. And it’s definitely a good thing for the students, as it eliminates one part of Cinder’s forces that they have to face. All that’s left are the Grimm, the White Fang, and Cinder’s group themselves. It also seems I was a bit mistaken about the White Fang controlling the Grimm, as we see a Grimm attacking Adam in this chapter. I figured that was just about the only way to get the Grimm onto transport ships. How else would you propose they pull off such a feat? And it also made sense since we never saw the Grimm attacking any other members of the White Fang. But I guess either such attacks did take place off-camera, or the White Fang forces were careful to keep out of the way of the Grimm. If such a thing is possible…
Adam is a dick.
Speaking of Adam, we finally have Blake’s confrontation with him, and I must say I didn’t expect how his character plays out. I figured he’d be the calm, collected type. Every time we’ve seen him so far (in flashbacks and in the Black trailer), he’s kind of been that way. But here we see that he is actually fanatical and even psychotic, especially towards Blake. Sure, he feels betrayed by Blake and is entitled to feelings of anger. But this guy is way beyond just angry. The way he constantly addresses Blake as “my love” is creepy. I guess it’s possible they had a romantic relationship in the past, or at least he harbored feelings for her that he might not have revealed. And his declaration that he only wants her, and that he will destroy everything she loves is just downright disturbing. It’s clear that Adam is as obsessed with Blake as he is with crushing the human race underfoot. And now that we see how fixated he is on her, I wonder if perhaps Blake leaving him is what triggered his spiral into what can best be described as madness. Because if so, that would be terribly ironic. Think about it. In leaving Adam for his questionable methods and motivations, Blake caused him to become an even bigger monster, twisted by his desire to seek revenge on the one who betrayed him.
Cinder becomes the fall maiden.
The other major development is the failed transfer of Amber’s aura into Pyrrha, followed by Cinder’s complete assimilation of the fall maiden’s powers. In a way, this was convenient for Pyrrha as she no longer has to worry about loosing her personality. But I can’t help but wonder if something really did happen to her during the botched aura transfer. Anyway, now Cinder has full command over the fall maiden’s powers, and we are meant to believe that she has become an even bigger threat. Yet I still find myself skeptical that her possessing the full force of a seasonal maiden’s powers makes any difference. The triumph of her own group against Amber really put a damper on my impression of the seasonal maidens’ powers. It was just all too easy, even if they had the element of surprise on their side and only just barely pulled through. All Ozpin has to do is hold out until the rest of his group arrives. Then they can either overpower her, or launch a surprise attack right as they arrive. Regardless, one other interesting point is that there might be some history between Cinder and Ozpin, or at least they might have a connection in the form of a shared acquaintance. Who this acquaintance might be is still not known, but it’s a safe bet that she is the one Cinder answers to.
Bad Day
Yang can’t catch a break.
As usual there are a number of other details to go over quickly. First up is Roman’s apparent death. He gets eaten by a griffon, said griffon is sent crashing into the bridge of Ironwood’s ship, and said ship crashes into the city and explodes. I know Roman is good at weaseling his way out of things, but I’m pretty sure he’s done for good this time. Next is the revelation that half of Ironwood’s body has actually been replaced with robotic prosthetics. This puts a much more personal spin on his reliance on robots and his desire to replace human soldiers with robotic ones. Then we get to see Velvet’s weapon in action (it creates light copies of weapons based on pictures she’s taken) and Qrow’s weapon in scythe form. Honestly, I didn’t find either particularly exciting. But it’s nice to finally see Velvet kick some butt and the scythe master wield an actual scythe. We also see Weiss starting to grasp summoning as she brings forth the right arm and sword of the golem she fought in the White trailer. Finally, Yang gets her right arm cut off by Adam. Ouch! Volume 3 has seriously been tough on the poor girl. I’m not sure where she will go from here since her fists are essentially her weapons. But maybe she can get a prosthetic arm from Ironwood?
Apparently the next chapter is the last one in this volume. So I think we’ll finally get around to learning Cinder’s motivations and plans. A showdown between her and Ozpin is the perfect opportunity for such a development, after all. But whatever happens, I’m not sure if the whole conflict will be resolved by the end of this volume. There are simply too many loose ends to be tied up, so it’s entirely possible that we’ll be left on a cliffhanger and resume the conflict whenever the next volume starts airing. I get the feeling that Cinder’s plan can no longer be stopped at this point. The world of Remnant is in for some big changes, and there’s not enough time in one final chapter to cover it all. That would logically come in volume 4.
Cinder vs. Ozpin.
About Sumairii
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Fate is suing for weapon copyright issues. 😛