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RWBY v5 chps11&12 The More The Merrier & Vault of the Spring Maiden (Patreon)

Published:
2025-11-29 17:00:09
Edited:
2026-05-02 21:27:57
Imported:
2026-09
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THE CURSE CONTINUES!!!!!

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Comments

Ian Moscrop

The moment she said Weiss was slowly becoming a favorite, all I could think about was this episode.

PheonixCantra

yes...the Remnant Moon Is not tidal locked like ours

cobaltbeau

The choreography issues this volume aren't due to Monty's absence, thankfully. One of the animation execs at RT diverted a ton of budget from this volume to work on his show, and RWBY (as well as a couple other RT shows) suffered for it. You'll also notice stuff like the Mistral plot hardly going into Mistral proper at all, existing only in the house, the school, and one sequence where Qrow goes around knocking on doors.

Etheriell

You want a real painful cliffhanger, episode 11 aired in December. And back when the show was airing yearly, they would always take a multi-week break during December for the holidays. So we got the episode 11 cliffhanger and then had to wait I think three weeks before we got episode 12, so we got to spend the entire Winter Holiday Time worrying about our dear Weiss lol. It was not fun

Vince

The number of times I’ve cursed the CRWBY writing team by their full legal names is literally uncountable. I was so fucking proud of my son Jaune tho. My precious little sunflower. He’s so good.

LoiteringFig

Exactly!!! Every time she mentions it I'm screaming internally

TheCasualNerd

Yeah everyone agrees the fights in this volume are a mess, unfortunately its a mix of budgetary issues and the new engine. Thankfully after this volume its a return to form.

Ridzy

vol 5 for me is the lowest point the show gets in terms of quality post monty's passing but luckily vol 6 onward the show makes great improvements. If i remember correctly one of the reasons vol 5 feels like such a dip in quality is the crunch for this volume was really bad like they were still writing the final episodes when the first episodes were airing also at the time the head of the animation department at rooster teeth Gray Haddock was siphoning a lot of RWBY's resources for another show rooster teeth was making in the background at the time GenLock Gray's passion project he came up with and was the main writer and director

May

To explain Cinder not going after Ruby or killing her. You probably forgot, but Salem requested she be taken alive. Not even Cinder is stupid enough to disobey an order from Salem. Salem could very easily kill her if she did.

bloodyshadow1

this final fight is probably the worst one imo. like you said it feels slow and it doesn't feel like a big battle to me with all the cuts

Justin Payne

Totally valid to say S5's animation/pacing/writing was...well...bad. Some episodes are exceptions, but I'd say overall S5 is the weakest season.

LoiteringFig

39:52 girl you have no idea...

Dafydd Mac an Leigh

Was it then? My memory has the bye week happening right before episode 11, rather than after. It has been a while, though...

ross lingard

this is by far the worst volume with pacing and writing in my opinion

Taigan

So happy Mosco immediately made the connection between Raven having the Maiden powers and using the mask to hide them. And the girl’s name is “Vernal.” Or at least that’s what she’s been going by. I suspect it was a name chosen when she became the decoy Spring maiden as it’s … kinda on the nose. (Just like Cinder Fall.)

Suplee215

I take the slower fights this volume as a tonal thing as well. Maybe thinking too much but I think v4 and 5 are more slowed down as a story goes. Remind a lot how in ancient epics will take time to introduce themselves to every enemy they fight while fights around them are happening. Unrelatic but interesting for the format.

K

There is an "r" in her name, but in the middle, not the beginning. Her name is Vernal, as it's the Latin root for "relating to spring."

Wootcat

Back when Lionheart was speaking to Salem and she was choking him with the Grimm, she mentioned how 'cowardly' he was when they first met. Obviously, at some point, Lionheart was able to see just how unstoppable and terrifying she can be. Hence the reason he began helping her before the Fall of Beacon. His motive was fear. And the word you were looking for was 'cauterize'. Re: Hazel's sister. Note that she died during a training mission. She wasn't a huntress, she was a student. As Ozpin warned everyone on the cliff the first day of training - "You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path, or you will die." While Hazel was taking things to the extreme, I can see why he holds Ozpin responsible for not protecting students under his care.

Costia Rose

I have been laughing ever since you said Weiss was your favorite knowing full well that this episode was coming and how you were going to react. Also Raven is my 2nd favorite character in RWBY, I love how complicated and just overall how smart she is. 2-3 steps ahead of everyone around her.

Stephen Mumford

Same! Every time she said it, in the back of my mind I'd hear a little tiny "oooooh nooooo"

May

Hazels motive is actually based on something a decent amount of people had criticized Ozpin for after vol 3 though they don’t make it clear in the show. I wasn’t one of those people, but from what I saw there were a subset of people who disliked Ozpin for the concept of the huntsman academies. From their perspective, Ozpin was basically creating an army for a war that none of the huntresses or huntsman had signed up for. They basically see Ozpin in a morally grey area, where he was trying to do good but with questionable methods. They see the withholding of information manipulative. Because ultimately, the people who enrolled thought they were just going up against mindless destructive creatures, not that there was someone behind it. The huntsman that were killed by Salem due to Lionheart, for example, would have had no clue that they could actually be targeted like that. Basically, they didn’t realize that the danger of being a huntsman was way higher than they thought. For many, there’s only a certain level of danger that they are able to see as worth the risk. Many huntsman signed up for different reasons, not necessarily to save the world. So I’d assume that Hazel’s anger towards Ozpin grew significantly when Salem found him, because from his perspective, his sister didn’t know fully what she was signing up for. He likely believes that maybe, if she had she wouldn’t have enlisted, and therefore she wouldn’t have died. He holds hatred for Ozpin, not only for his sister’s death, but for all the people who enlisted into the academies under false pretenses. He dislikes the entire concept of the academies. Of course you could argue against his motive, and point out flaws. Though I do like that his motive basically surrounds something that people in the rwby fandom actually were criticizing Ozpin for.

Suplee215

Hazel sees Ozpin as someone who uses child soldiers. Its not completely fair but its not completely unwarranted either. Especially as Ozpin secretly created the academies and then became a headmaster to continue watching. Hes running a whole secret society there. For good reasons but yea.

Stephen Mumford

I'm glad someone else noticed the distinct drop in fight choreography quality/dynamism this season! I'm pleased to say that they do course-correct that after this season, IMHO. But yeah, this first episode's fight scene in particular was just achingly static, and ALMOST made me not bother with the rest of the series when I saw it first.

K0ppar

and now you know why Cinder was affected by Ruby's silver eyes, nothing to do with stopping her maiden powers, everything to do with a gross Grimm arm

BGTitan

Ep 11: Love that Qrow’s first instinct was to shoot when they saw Raven. “If you’re going to shoot me, shoot me. That was insulting.” I love her. She’s horrible and I love her. “You sound just like your mother.” Oooh, what’s this? Summer crumbs? Get enough of those and we might actually have a slice of bread someday. Lol I will once again give props to Mr. Miles Luna for his voice acting as Jaune. His whole speech before the fight is just masterful. So much emotion. And I’m also inclined to think that Cinder was completely genuine with her “who are you” because she definitely did not pay Jaune any attention while at Beacon. She would not have clocked him as a threat at all. It literally is just cowardice that motivates Leo. Nothing more, nothing less. Now imagine having to wait two weeks after this episode. Ep 12: I love watching people react to Raven being the Spring Maiden. Some people figure it out but a lot of people get blindsided. Either way it’s a very fun reveal. Also makes her conversation with Qrow back in V4 very funny. “Well you’ve certainly got someone strong on your side. I’ve seen the damage. …I’m not talking about the Grimm. And I’m not talking about you, either.” Except he was! Ah, got to love hindsight. There were some hints, like her always having her mask on when "Vernal" used the powers to hide her glowing eyes, like you said. But also when "Vernal" summons lighting to stop the fight from breaking out you can see Raven also putting her hand down. The reveal of Cinder's Grimm arm was also a dope surprise.

Albedo12

Yes, funny that Raven calls out Cinder for (probably) choosing the name "Fall", when she did exactly the same thing with "Vernal".

Phoenix_mercury

tbf with or without a master the Grimm are still an issue that need taking care of else destroy villages ect, so even without the fight against salem the huntsmen/tresses from the academies are still needed

RetroBeastto

You mean Spring vs Fall Loved your reaction and every time you mentioned Weiss being your favorite I just giggled every single time hehehe. But loved your reaction

CrowOfAFeather

So, regarding V5. The guy who previously did the voice for Torchwick took from the budget for this other show, gen:Lock. You mentioned how sometimes characters just stand around and that's one of the unfortunate things to come from this. The fighting took a heavy blow in general. It's fair to say V5 is the weakest of them all because of this, but it still has it's plethora of charms and positives such as the character narrative. Monty was incredibly unique with his fight animations so it was not only a big pair of shoes to fill after his passing, but difficult to pull off when your budget is being tampered with. It wasn't for a lack of trying like some love to believe. However, it only gets better from here, but at this point you're a good portion into V6 so you know already :3 The City of Mistral, as you may recall, is basically on a mountain with different levels of the city being either well-off or the "slums". Haven is right at the top, and many teachers perished and the students were sent away, hence why there's no-one else there. But the budget didn't help of course so we unfortunately don't see much of the kingdom. 8:03 They are in the main hall of the Academy actually. :) "At least Raven used the Spring Maiden as part of the tribe" I mean, a bandit tribe that steals and kills for a living. Not sure how great that is... To be fair, they hid Lionheart's tail previously. This is literally the first time it's shown so don't feel bad! The Silver Eyes don't affect Magic. Think back on how Cinder got her powers in the first place. Hazel blaming Opzin, while irrational, isn't as far fetched as it seems. He and his sister are based on Hanzel and Gretel, as I've commented on one of Elijah's videos, so we can assume they only had each other. So losing his only family during a TRAINING mission of all things, despite that he told her not to enroll, must've been as maddening as it was tragic. And we know Salem manipulates people, so take that into account as well as Hazel grieving his sister, and you have a man hell-bent on revenge and basically gaslit into thinking Ozpin is the real person to blame. Refusing to accept that it was her choice and just want to someone else to blame. We've seen far worse things in our world unfortunately... AAAND now you know the truth! :D If you look back, there are subtle hints that it was Raven all along. The mask for one, but in the scene when "Vernal" stopped the fighting between the bandits vs Yang/Weiss? You can see Raven in the back with her hand out before subtly and quickly lowering it. Vernal was the willing decoy all along! "We're gonna see Fall Maiden vs Fall Maiden!" ...nope, Raven is the Spring Maiden lol The Maidens all have the same powers. The only key difference is which Maiden can open which door to the vaults. Cinder just loves to flaunt with fire.

Zero Blazer Gaming

All the individual fights here at the end of the volume are good when watching each in a vacuum. It's when you stitch them all together that that the action falls apart. many find this section to be the worst fight in the show. so don't worry it's all better from here

Globe Blotter

The confidence with which Mosco is wrong....lol (renald is killing me)

JAMES D'ALESSANDRO

Raven only cares about herself. She doesn't care about her tribe and she uses Vernal more than any of them. She is no better than Cinder. With that said, keep loving her as a character. I want so badly to see her die. My wishlist is Adam, Raven, then Cinder to be killed by our side at some point.

Dafydd Mac an Leigh

So remember back in Volume 4, when Cinder was struggling with something, and Salem was all "It can sense your trepidation. You must make it fear you"? That was Cinder getting the Grimm arm.

Dafydd Mac an Leigh

It's almost as bad as a lion faunus being called "Leonardo Lionheart"...

JAMES D'ALESSANDRO

It's okay, you are 100% right again. Just like the bad writing with the fights at the Belladonnas house. This is also a few episodes of good but mostly stupid writing. No show is perfect, but why Juane just didn't cut inders head off instead of whatever he did was awful. They need to do better. I get for plot reasons she can't die there, but don't set that scene up like that then. There are far more annoying things that happen throughout this group fight that I try to just overlook, but it is too hard to not point out how bad this was handled in parts of it. When Blake asks if Ruby is okay and like a bad ass she says no, I'm angry) as a viewer I am excited to see what she does, but they show us nothing. That pissed me off so much when I first watched this.

Craig York (Yorkie)

Yeah I have to totally agree, volume 5 is definitely the weakest volume. Hazel is honestly a prime example of that, he's in my opinion, poorly written. His motivation is rushed into through exposition and a single line of dialogue. At no other point in the volume do we see any other hints to his motivation. That is a very poor way to have the audience connect with a character; it is not the proper way to write for any form of visual media.

Jyoster

Episode 11... That's an episode that I can't help but take personally! Like others have said, they had a 2 week break between it and episode 12, and they also purposefully slashed the W in the Rwby logo to emphasize this, just to toy with our emotions. But the reason why this episode hurts me on a personal level, is because it aired... ON MY BIRTHDAY!!! One of my all time favorite characters [Weiss] getting this hurt and implied to have a potentially fatal wound, I had to witness that on my birthday! I nearly had a heart attack when I watched that happen! Thanks Rooster Teeth, that's a day I won't be forgetting for the foreseeable future!

Curtis Murphy

Hazel's motives are actually pretty good if critical thinking is applied imo anyway. His sister was on a TRAINING mission. Meaning she was still a student. And yeah the fight choreography this Volume took a big hit. It was due to mismanagement of resources from people behind the scenes and thankfully they were able to course correct going forward

Taigan

That one is moderately more excusable as his leontine nature was obvious from birth.

SportySpice

The genLOCK showrunner (also a producer on RWBY) was siphoning resources away from RWBY to his new shiny toy. They just didn’t have the budget or animator manpower at this stage - not a lack of talent but resource allocation. There is an extenuating circumstance for the sluggishness and barrenness of V5. Fights in V6 get back to top notch. I think we were very excited to see you get cursed again w Weiss. I’m sort of glad you’re wrong about Jaune’s semblance (I know you’ve watched a few ahead) and were genuinely surprised by the Raven plot twist (which was so well done). I say this with respect, but I think sometimes you’re trying too hard to “win RWBY” by guessing stuff and getting dug in on tangents or mysteries that will just get answered if you press play. It’s more fun when you let the show come to you. Sometimes your frustrated questions get answered in the next episode — or even the next scene. Just enjoy it! You’re not being tested.

SportySpice

it’s almost like they’re setting up a theme that will pay off with Hazel’s gripe — this show is a slow burn. His gripe will be validated (that Oz throws kids at an unwinnable war) soon enough. She’s seen through 6x3 so not spoiling.

Mordred pendragon

two points, first: her name is Vernal nor Rernald, second, and this isn't a spoiler: The Maidens don't each have specific powers, it's just personal preference, and the eye glow colour is just the character's eye colour, not representing which maiden they are

Geass

Juane's semblance isn't healing, but he can do an impression of it in a pinch.

Curtis Murphy

Do you think the first part of my my comment came off as being confrontational towards her? I hope I didn't come off as rude

SportySpice

I wouldn’t worry - based on her sense of humor she likes to dish it too. I think and hope she knows this all comes from a place of respect (that’s certainly how I mean it).

Moonas

Just I have problems with quality today? It's 144p no matter what browser I'm trying to use.

ELS_Art

As a long time RWBY fan I have always hated the bit picking in the fight animations after volume three. Monty was an EXTREMELY talented artist and his work was amazing but he was not the only artist that worked extremely hard on the animations. Hell the animator that worked on the fight for Sun vs Ilia even paid homage to Monty’s animation of Sun’s original fight scene in volume one ve Roman Torchwick. Fast paced fight scenes are fun bug Not every fight scene needs to be action,-cation, action. Sometimes a scene can build tension better if both sides are waiting for the other to slip up to strike. Also I feel like the show does a good job at showing Yeam RWBY’s opponents get harder as the volumes go by. In volume one they are struggling against Nevermore and Death Stalkers but by this volume they are fighting a maidens and literally mass murderers. The fights aren’t as fluid because they aren’t as easy. I understand wanting the Protagonist to be perfect in every single moment but honestly that feels less satisfying in my opinion. I want the Hero’s to make mistakes, I want the villains to land blows against the hero’s if there are no stakes in the fight and the hero is frame perfect wiping the floor with the antagonist where is the entertainment in that. I don’t know just watching this show for ten plus years and knowing how hard animation is the “It was Better when Monty was alive” comments got old real quick, also feels like a slap in the face to the animators that came after.

Mare

Thank you for saying this! I always felt this every time the pause button was pressed on certain moments that would have eventually answered her questions. 😅

ELS_Art

“At least she see’s Vernal as a person” Yeah about that… 🤭🤣🤣🤣🤣

ELS_Art

Cauterized is the word you are looking for.

Arashi

11: I wouldn't say Hazel is against violence so much as he is against 'unnecessary violence'. He didn't like Adam killing Sienna, but more because he wasn't told ahead of time and the action wasn't (from his perspective) needed. That it happened wasn't the issue. You're a bit off in your mental picture. Mistral is the 'kingdom' as well as the city. That's what they saw 'bustling with people'. Haven is the Academy and a contained 'campus'. Like how Beacon was on the cliffside away from the city of Vale. Confirmed Raven bonds, Qrow, Tai, Yang, Vernal and there was probably one with Summer too. All important, reoccurring names/characters I'm sure. For Leo... most of it, I think, is just a result of his cowardice having warn down his dedication to someone on another continent. He's a fanus headmaster in the heart of a kingdom that's pretty prejudiced against them. As others have said both to this ending and others. Now imagine having to /wait/ weeks to find out what happens next. 12: It was likely less that 'Salem didn't tell Cinder that Oz reincarnates' so much as he wasn't expected to either be reborn that soon and/or link up with those in the field. Yeah, Hazel's 'reason' to hate Oz, let alone how that lead to joining Salem has been something of a thorn in the FNDM for pretty much that exact reason. 'My sister died to Grimm, so in order to kill the man who made the Academy that 'failed' to train her to survive against a Grimm, I'll work for the leader of the Grimm.' So there is a lot of back-and-forth that was the 'training mission' something Oz allowed (like letting RWBY take Mountain Glenn despite being 'too inexperienced') or was it honestly just a bit of bad luck. Jaune's semblance showing up clutch, though not quite 'healing' or 'shielding'. And it'll be expanded on a lot. How right Pyrrha was in tell us that Jaune had a lot of Aura. Cinder has, supposedly, been to the Beacon vault. Though recall Oz said a couple chapters ago that he made 'accessing the vault' more complicated. Cinder's seen the door, but isn't apparently able to open it. 43:09 "Ruby: Hands above the waist. That's my wife." :p Hey, White Rose needs all the scraps we can get. ;) Say 'hi' to Cinder's new arm. Complete with Grimm-powered, Maiden sucking action. Just be watchful for some irritating Silver Eyes, they'll sting a bit.

Migli

the colour of the maidens flames isn't actually determined by the season but the wielder's eye colour so cinders are amber and ravens are red, it just so happens the previous fall maiden also had brown/amber eyes and so the flame colour didn't really change when cinder got the powers

Jittercritter

Volume 5 is easily the worst in my opinion, wholeheartedly agree with your assessment on the fight pacing issues and some of the character behaviors and motivations are wack, but they find their footing again in 6 for sure

Sweg Money

Perhaps heretical, I've always liked the volume 5 fights better than 1-3. I was losing interest in the show until volume 5 restarted it.

Sweg Money

I disagree with this because I feel people are looking at his reaction too "logically." Based on what little there is of him and also drawing from the Hansel and Gretel allusion, I've always felt that Hazel likely lived away from the kingdoms or had some sort of similar libertarian bent. When his sister dies that confirmed all of his preexisting prejudices about The System. Yes, logically it makes sense that some people lose family members as a result of the huntsman academies, but it's probably not easy to tell the family that they were an acceptable casualty. This added to the fact that as far as he knows Salem is offering a New World Order that removes all the institutions he hates while seemingly being able to control the Grimm potentially removing the need for the Huntsman Academies or equivalent, his motivation makes perfect sense to me. Basically, I view him more as a sort of bulked up Anakin Skywalker in terms of how selfish grief makes him turn towards a noted master manipulator.

Vegvisir92

Vernal is not a good person...when she said all she cares about is her tribe.....you do remember her tribe are bandits right?

Raiku Yuri

Honestly my least favorite seasons are 4 and 5, they didn't have the best fight choreography. This is mainly because Monty Oum had died and they were trying to figure out the new animation system and how to animate good fights. Luckily they do figure it out from season 6 onwards, so you got that to look forward too.

Raiku Yuri

RWBY doesn't make child soldiers morally correct in their world. The only kingdom to technically use huntsman as soldiers is Atlas which you learn in WoR, Qrow even states it is controversial in the Atlas episode. Huntsman are usually not soldiers, they are volunteers becoming basically mercenaries for the good of the people, that is why they have mission boards where they can choose which missions they do and for who. Learning fight at a young age as isn't really bad because they do live in a world full of bloodthirsty monsters, so it makes sense for a good chunk of the population to have some combat experience and some to specialize in it.

Lavender Onyxheart

it's actually aura color not eye color, common misconception, since most of the maidens have the same eye color as their aura's, Amber however had brown eyes and a light orange aura, which her maiden flames reflected

WolfieOo

I gotta say, when I first watched this, I hadn't realized how bad the fight choreography was. It was many years ago, and I had watched this as it was coming out, so I had the first three volumns of jank to compare the style to. But you really know your stuff Mosco, from how they frame the situation/image to what typical lighting or props could mean, to even how fights go. It's really impressive. Don't worry though, the fights get better after this season, promise!

SportySpice

Isn’t Raven’s aura a dark orangey color? I could have sworn when it flickers in the maiden bowl, it wasn’t pure red (like her eyes).

Vex Valor

I am not entirely sure if it's true, but I have heard from people that Hazel's sister, Gretchen, was like Ruby in which she got special permission to enroll in Beacon Academy early and then she died in a training accident which would make sense why Hazel would blame Ozpin for her death because there was that age requirement already in place for a reason and it was overlooked. She wasn't ready. I do agree that I wish the characters were slightly older to being enrolled in that academy. It was at least 17 and they are meant to be in it for two years so graduating at 19 which isn't that bad in comparison to a lot of other child soldier media, but I do like 21 being the admission age better. People at 17 are still growing in both body and mind and that is a lot to be putting on them at that age. Army isn't even until 18 in most countries. Which that practice can be predatory as well which is a whole other discussion I won't be getting into.

Caleb Winningham

A lot of the fighting going down hill in vol 5 has to do with the budget for RWBY being embezzled by a higher-up at Rooster Teeth for his animation project. So that's why Vol 5 is *like this*(tm) but I think you'll find from 6 onward it gets better again.

James S

I'm strongly of the opinion that one particular fight in Season 6 is probably the best of the series.

Caleb Winningham

For me it's one in Vol 7 but I know the one you're talking about and that's also a great choice.

Caleb Winningham

That's a commonly accepted theory, but remember that brown is a shade of orange, so we still haven't had a maiden with eyes and aura of different colors technically.

Andrew Hart

There are so many factors to volume 5’s drop in quality that others have mentioned, but I just want to add my two cents. The most obvious factor is that producer and head of animation Gray Haddock grossly mismanaged the animation department. He siphoned resources away from Volume 5 (as well as the other animated shows in production that year) to fund his own show, Gen:Lock. That doesn’t just mean money either, the animation department was working on several other animated shows before and during volume 5 with some key members being taken off of RWBY to work exclusively on Gen:Lock leading to extreme crunch conditions. An important aspect that often gets overlooked is the workload on Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross. They were the sole writers for RWBY at this point (having worked hand in hand with Monty from the start). On top of this, in 2017 they were both writing episodes of RWBY Chibi, another animated show called Camp Camp and helping Gray with the writing for Gen:Lock. Miles was also head writer of RT animation which meant he oversaw the scripts for all the other animated shows like Red vs Blue and Nomad of Nowhere. This contributed to the fact that Miles and Kerry didn’t start writing volume 5 until much later than they had planned. In fact they were still writing the ending chapters when the first chapters of volume 5 started airing. Meaning that Kerry was having to direct the shots and communicate with the different animation teams to produce the later episodes whilst simultaneously trying to write the script for those episodes with Miles. There were positives to come from Volume 5’s chaotic production though. The most important one being that Miles and Kerry learnt from their mistakes and began writing volume 6 earlier and brought in help from other employees in the animation department like Yssa Badiola and Eddy Rivas (who would later go on to be a full time writer on RWBY) to look over the scripts and provide feedback, this also ensured that Kerry could focus more on directing the episodes along with a new co-director, (Connor Pickens) promoted to help ease Kerry’s directorial workload. As divisive as it is, I genuinely believe that if volume 5 hadn’t been so badly mishandled and poorly received then all subsequent volumes of RWBY wouldn’t have improved by so much and been as good as they are. Ultimately volume 5 was the wake up call that the show needed at that time that things behind the scenes needed to change.

Migli

yeah that would make sense but given that so far all the maidens we've seen have the same or similar colour eyes as their aura there is little way to tell for certain if its based off aura or eye colour if somone like yang for example was a maiden it would be much easier to tell (purple eyes yellow aura)

Cinder's Apologist

I'll repeat what I surely mentioned after a previous watch: it's a fan theory but perhaps the reason why Lionheart "betrayed Ozpin" is because he is the one Faunus headmaster among the academies, residing in a kingdom that is particularly unkind to the Faunus overall. it's not explicit text so it's difficult to confirm, but I have seen evidence presented by someone I trust that suggests a lot of subtext scattered throughout the RWBY franchise (minor details in show as well as in books) indicating that Mistral was the worst kingdom for Faunus racism. Atlas is bad for sure, but according to one book, Velvet has family in Atlas and she still initially considers people from Mistral to be even more racist. therefore, it's likely that when Salem came for Lionheart, he simply cracked under immense strain he was already feeling... so bad that even Salem seemed to be a better option. as for the fights... yeah I have nothing else to add to what's been said. I didn't even pay that close attention until many rewatches later and actually listening to what others had to say about volume 5. which tells you that some of us aren't really super invested in the "cool fights" because we're too easily entertained by the "cool story" XD soooooo safe rule of thumb for RWBY: if the characters aren't suffering, then they're not being developed in a meaningful way. suffering is the foundation of this show, frankly. I know it sucks to see your faves getting hurt like this, but that's just the nature of this story. c12... mmmmmm pretty sure Salem would have told her followers about the Oz reincarnation thing. that's a pretty critical detail. for Cinder, it's more that Oz is already back AND at Haven at that moment. *inhales deeply and tries to be calm about this* Cinder cannot kill Ruby BECAUSE SALEM SAID SO. SALEM FORBADE IT. when she sent Tyrian after Ruby in v4, Salem explicitly said that Ruby be brought to her. Cinder might hate Ruby, but she has her orders. someone else said this but I'll also lift it up: child soldiers in Remnant is not a matter of being "morally correct"; it's a matter of what is, tragically, necessary in a world hostile to humanity (and Faunuskind). in fact, if you ever go back and listen closely to the things Salem talks about - including a few specific songs that are Salem POV - you'll notice there is acknowledgement of how signing up children to fight IS a problem. it's just that Remnant is a cruel world full of lethal creatures unlike our own, so training people to fight from a very young age unfortunately becomes necessary when it comes down to either fighting to survive or relying on others to fight for you. loved seeing the reaction to the Spring Maiden twist! yes, that was well done and always fun to watch. as for the upcoming MAIDEN BOWL, ROUND ONE! don't worry, you will love it.

Phoenix_mercury

Yeah whe it comes to fighting young, even without Salem as the "master over the Grimm" the Grimm are still a thing that are a threat and do need to be take care off lest they decimate villages/towns ect(rens village for example, they didn't have a huntsman to protect them) and shrink the already small land safe from Grimm even smaller

CB Jones

It's a little funny (in a morbid sense) that you pointed to Raven as the one person who saw Vernal as a person rather than a tool. I do believe that Raven cared, but she essentially used her as diversion and a shield to protect herself. All this and letting her brother and daughter walk into a trap simply because the chaos caused might give her an edge. Lionheart might have given in to his fears, but Raven is controlled by hers. And everyone around her is paying for that. I don't exactly agree that the team COULDN'T live up to Monty's standard in his absence, there are some moments of excellent animation scattered throughout which demonstrate the quality they were capable of, but it does feel like they over reached. There's a lot of large scale fights with a whole bunch of people and so many moving parts all being excecuted by a relatively small team on a minimal budget being pushed to finish within a year. And some of the tactics they used in Vol3, separating fights into more manageable sizes and using snapshots to have a fight mostly offscreen (Oz vs Cinder) just don't work so well for the battles of Vol5. I don't see the cracks as a lack of skill, just a lack of time and resources. But I will say that they learned from this well, I belive this was the point that they threw out their yearly shcedule and released when they were ready instead, among other things.

CB Jones

So it's both better and worse from what I remember, Beacon is a 4 year program (Oz mentions it in Vol 1 right before he launches them off the cliff) so they graduate at 21 in theory. That said most of them come to beacon from "Combat Schools" like Signal, so they probably start training around 12-13. The step up with Beacon is that Signal doesn't seem to pit students against actual grimm, they presumably only spar with eachother (Yang and Ruby do seem to be fighting grimm outside of school hours anyway, but that seems to be a Patch issue). That being said, as for Hazel blaming Oz it's not like we haven't seen Oz be pretty cavalier with the lives of his students. I refer back to him throwing them off a cliff into a grimm infested forest with a promise of no assistance on their FIRST DAY. Teacher's are having students fight grimm in classrooms with no barricades to stop the grimm form running amok and team RWBY is sent on a mission first years are generally barred from because... they ask nicely I guess? I'd blame the teachers too.

Todd Lucas

Amazing how almost no one notices the statue under the platform that leads to the maiden's chamber.... And how significant it is....

Vex Valor

I could sworn that Beacon was 2 or 3 years, but that's my bad. It was probably me thinking that RWBY were closer to graduating than they actually were. I also saw Ruby's previous combat school to be more of a proper school with some basic combat teaching, but Ruby was an unusual case of being really good at combat since Qrow took her under his wing. It at least made more sense in my head that children were getting a proper education, but also teaching them to fight like gym class because they live in a world where grimm could attack them. So some basic fighting and survival skills in case of that happening would make sense. Yeah there really was little to no safety precautions at that school. It's amazing Jaune survived it.

Moonas

Ok first, if your sister would die at school for example in chemistry class bc they gave kids dangerous chemicals to do experiments with, u will blame sister or school who let them? and second u usually talking 5 min trying to guess what is happening when u have answer 1s later or u are screaming through dialogue so u can't hear what they are talking about. That's why u don't understand some things they are talking about or doing later.

Craig York (Yorkie)

Fair, I can honestly see where you're coming from there. My main gripe is how that's been conveyed through the writing of the character. Simply having one line, at the end of the series, explaining his motivation, is not a good way to have the audience connect to this character. Any visual media needs to narratively show, not tell, when it comes to narrative and characters. If they wanted this character to have a bigger impact on the story and start sowing seeds of doubt on Ozpin's motivations, they really needed to give Hazel more means to demonstrate that throughout the series. Like, for example, earlier, when he witnessed Adam kill the White Fang leader, perhaps that could have triggered flashbacks or audio cues to him arguing with his sister or receiving the news of his sister's death. Little things like that would have greatly allowed a better connection for the audience and time for him to come across as a bigger obstacle for Ozpin. Instead, we get this one single sentence of dialogue out of nowhere, which honestly just reads as awkward and, in my opinion, as a writer, lazy. It's not so much his motivation I take issue with, it's how it's been introduced and conveyed. That being said, despite my gripes over the writing of volume 5, I can understand why it's like this; they'd just lost Monty, were getting used to writing without him, had mismanagement of resources behind the scenes and were likely under pressure from the production to write the volume as fast as possible. So with that in mind, I can overlook my grievances with the writing, for the most part. But if they had just spent a little more time on the writing and characters like Hazel, there really could have been a much bigger impact for the story as a whole.

Luna

I do completely agree with this volume’s fights being very poorly paced, but later on I do think they get better personally

Symbolic Remnant

Late V5 is the absolute floor of fight quality for all of RWBY.

Ryan

To be fair, fight choreography and continuity are hard. And there are six individual fights going on. But don't worry, the fights improve in later volumes. Especially the showdown between Winter and her ex-girlfriend (Cinder) when she learns what she did to Weiss. It's not your fault, Mosco. Cinder is just jealous that she's not your favorite character. So she's eliminating the competition. "No more favorite characters for me!" she said, all too confidently. Good luck with that ;)

Cody Schultz

Volume 5 is a little disappointing with the fights but the quality of volume 6 and beyond skyrocket. At least in my opinion, 6 through 9 are my favorite volumes.

milkystross

I personally believe Hazel's motives make complete sense, but of course hes still a hypocrite otherwise he wouldnt be one of the bad guys. But the thing is on DAY ONE of school at Beacon Ozpin flung these CHILDREN off a cliff and said if they cant fight they will die. Hazel isnt just upset about his sister dying, he thinks the huntsman academies as a whole are evil (rightfully so) and blames the man who made them, Ozpin Also the drop in quality is less to do with Montys passing and more to do with the functional embezzlement of funds that many people have mentioned, volume 6 onwards combat surpasses the early volume stuff by a lot in my opinion

Kadaver

I like to think Qrow’s “hand her over” is because he thinks Raven is holding her hostage. I know it’s what I thought before we got introduced to vernal

man-of-bvz1n3ss

Yes, this is the school. It's deserted because Leo killed all the teachers. We don't ever get it *explicitly* spelled out why Leo joined Salem, but we do get enough context clues that you can get the general implication as to what happened. Given what Elijah's said about how far you've gotten into the show you should've already seen some of it... The slow fight scenes in this are generally weird, but Weiss' actually makes some degree of sense. She's just gotten her Arma Gigas avatar, it's a fun new toy, and she's using it every chance she gets, regardless of whether or not it's appropriate. Vernal destroying it symbolizes Weiss learning not to rely on her avatars too much. It is really weird that Cinder's only fighting Jaune, it'd make so much more sense for her to fight both of them at once. The word you're looking for is "cauterized", not "sutured". That just means "stitched". Is there a giant tree in Elves of Amaranth, by any chance?

August Perrin

yeah, i was waiting for this reaction to Weiss being speared

Issac Blue

Okayyy ntm on the fight scenes but To be fair volume 5 kinda sucks in general lol. Volume 6 is def peak tho

Lt. Waffles

now just imagine how crazy we all went after that Weiss scene and not getting another episode for literal WEEKS. lol it was a brutal time.

Leon Lesser

Volume 5 is pretty notorious for it's lackluster fight animation. I really enjoy the characters introduced in this volume, but the animation and pacing, along with the writing are pretty painful at times.

Lisi Stoire

For me it does make sense that Cinder isn't directly going after Ruby ; as much as she wants her to die, she's still scared of the effects her silver eyes can have on her. Not to mention that later she basically "hire" *someone* (no spoil) to do that for her, and the moment she's confronted to Ruby again in Atlas (who's about to activate her silver eyes), her first reflex is to *flee*. So for her it doesn't matter if she's the one taking her down or not, as long as Ruby dies one way or another. Maybe it wasn't correctly executed (like a lot of things in volume 5) or showed to the audience, but considering the number Ruby did to her and the fact that Cinder's biggest fear is to feel weak/powerless, the fact that she didn't go to attack Ruby right away isn't that illogical for me

Yulii Aladzhov

That is an incredibly weak argument. Huntsment work is known to be extremely dangerous. To expect that any part of the training for it would be safe is foolish and I'm choosing the nicest word possible here. We have no evidence that Ozpin and his staff WOULD actually let students die during initiation but even if that were the case to go for this profession and NOT expect danger at every turn is unbearably naive. Doubly so when the majority of people signing up to the academies come from Schools like Signal that specifically prep them for it. And the ones that don't are predominantly from outside the kingdoms and thus even more aware of the dangers. To call the academies evil is such a laughable reach I really have no words for it. It funny how each time this argument is made, no actual alternative is offered or in the rare instances it is, it's usually complete nonsense. Remnant IS A DEATH WORLD. People forget we're following a group of mostly overqualified, exceptionally talented individuals. MOST PEOPLE are nowhere close to the main cast in skill and potential. And no that's not convenient. That's how stories work. That's how logic works - of course the people with the skills, potential and drive to act will be the ones at the center of the action.

Yulii Aladzhov

Go back and re-watch Cinder taking Amber's power. SHE ABSORBED THE GLOVE. The 'Glove' was some kind of disguised grimm that could channel the magic of the maiden power and it was absorbed into Cinder. The reason the Silver Eyes are a threat to Cinder is because she is now part grimm or at the very least she has a grimm parasite living inside her. This is one of those things in the show that is extremely obvious and the fandom still acts like it's some great mystery about it or like there is another explanation why Ruby is a hard counter to Cinder. Conveniently ignoring that in V5C11 when she activates the Eyes there IS ANOTHER MAIDEN IN THE ROOM and is NOT affected in any way. Even if we don't know who that maiden is exactly at the time. NO ONE ELSE is affect, JUST Cinder. The Silver eyes are and always have been a counter to Grimm and Grimm alone. Maiden powers are just magic. There is nothing for the Silver Eye power to affect in them.

Karel Hill

Qrow has a lot of problematic interactions with women during the course of the show.

Karel Hill

"We love giant trees in this household" LMFAO!!!!

Rixec2

Regarding the fight scenes, volume 5 as a whole faced a lot of troubled production. The character shorts did eat into the budget a good bit. And then animation resources were diverted from RWBY to gen:LOCK, which is why the fights and everyone in Mistral were confined to the house and the school. Both fans and staff felt it could have been better, so they began reworking how to handle things going forward.

GlitchedLetters

THANK YOU, it esp annoys me when people try to use Salem's wording during V4E1, when she says that "it's because of the maiden's power"; if you read the script and context of the conversation, she isn't talking about the Maiden Powers, she's talking about Ruby's powers and referring to her as a maiden. Which makes sense since we know that Salem is a much older figure and would have vocabulary from an ancient era, where girls and young women were called maidens.

Chyanne Smith

Also, the spear that cinder summons to hit Weiss is Pyrhas weapon 👍

TheyWereMarried

Asking the Cowardly Lion why he joined up with the scariest women on the planet... I've never had an issue with the writing of this show. But I did know about Cinder's arm before this episode, Raven being the Spring Maiden before this episode and I had worked out a Volume 8 plot twist in Volume 2.

Hotaru Tomoe

I think it could also refer to how Cinder got the maiden power. That tattoo on her back, she had the Grim inside her since then. That’s what the silver eyes injured.

SauceyRed

12:15 I... I never even thought about who the portal was connected to... incredible lmao

DominusInFortuna

Also kneeling and looking to the left was Pyrrha's death pose.

John J Ronald

It's mildly amusing Cinder arguably almost misses Weiss because she only has 1 good eye and thus lacks depth perception. Ruby moving Jaune's hands had every EMT and ER Nurse screaming at their screens, too, haha.