RWBY Volume 8 Episode 4
Added 2024-07-27 16:00:03 +0000 UTCEarly ad-free access for our RWBY Volume 8 Episode 4 Reaction
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I have no canon information to back this up, but my thought process on Ren's broodiness is that it's a consequence of his Semblance. His Semblance allows him to mask negative emotions and he unlocked it as a young child, he's probably never allowed himself to really feel and process negative emotions and as a consequence has never learned how to process them healthily (we saw in his backstory that his Semblance literally stops him from feeling negative emotions - he stopped experiencing fear the second his Semblance kicked in and Nora calmed down the moment he used it on her). He's likely used it every time he felt a negative emotion (I know I would have if I could). In this scene, his aura's low and so is prioritising using his aura to stave off the cold rather than "wasting" it to keep his negative emotions suppressed instead, which lead to him lashing out.
HalfPriceHero01
2024-08-21 10:39:56 +0000 UTCI really have to agree with Ren with some things. This season is also the one where i really start to dislike Yang
Tatsumi Ga Kill
2024-08-10 13:20:03 +0000 UTCA neat caveat to Qrow and Clover's semblances is that Qrow's affects those around him where as Clover's only affects himself. You can observe this in V3 when he(Qrow) more or less got Winter in trouble, as well as in V4 when he fought Tyrian and Ruby nearly got concussed from a wood beam. On top of that the Nuckleavee from V4 was drawn to Qrow as he was suffering from Tyrian's venom as well as the negativity being generated by Ruby as a result of her uncle's condition. Clover used his own semblance to help out Qrow, which allowed him to save him from injury during the Gheist mission from V7E3. I may be wrong, but I also think Clover helped Robyn get the shots on Tyrian during V7E11 when Watts was beaten by Ironwood. In the fight between Tyrian, Qrow, and Clover, Qrow's semblance can kind of be blamed for Clovers' death given that Qrow's sword was the murder weapon and Clover's aura had been broken ergo his semblance was turned off, therefore misfortune had the floor. I am also not a big Robyn fan, but she was spot on in her attacks at Harriet. I mean I despise that little asshat(Harriet) anyways, but Robyn was right; Harriet is just bitter; she doesn't care about the truth, she's just finding a target to aim her anger at. Ren did hate what he said to Jaune, but I also like that Yang jumped to Jaune's defense. The stress all of them are going through is palpable. Like Ren was not entirely wrong in his rant, but that jab at Jaune was really poorly made. I also want to say that Jaune has been a trip for me; I hated him in V1, V2, and most of V3, but he's grown on me and to hear Ren say that to him infuriates me. I know Ren realized he regretted saying it the second he processed what he had said, but damage done.
DevilJynx
2024-07-30 17:47:53 +0000 UTCGood point. We just watch this weekly and kind of assume time has lapsed, and just casually forget how little time has passed 😨
Bethany and Ken
2024-07-29 15:12:44 +0000 UTCVery sad indeed 🙁
Bethany and Ken
2024-07-29 15:11:40 +0000 UTCYou make a lot of good points 🙂
Bethany and Ken
2024-07-29 15:11:13 +0000 UTCRen just needs some faith. Mainly in himself. Oz has been around for how long? He doesn't make the best judgement always, but feels like he would know who to pick and lean on for a fight against Salem. 🙂
Bethany and Ken
2024-07-29 15:10:01 +0000 UTCYeah his growth is great 😊
Bethany and Ken
2024-07-29 15:07:57 +0000 UTCThat's a good interpretation 🙂
Bethany and Ken
2024-07-29 15:07:23 +0000 UTC😎👍😀 Thanks for that reminder on V4
Bethany and Ken
2024-07-29 15:06:40 +0000 UTCThanks for that info 🙂
Bethany and Ken
2024-07-29 15:05:19 +0000 UTCI think it's important to keep in mind the compressed timeline of Volume 8. As Jaune is talking about being tired and taking a nap, it's only been about one day since the dinner party of last volume, where Jacques was arrested. So not only is everyone running on fumes, they also haven't really had an opportunity to process anything yet. It's been a few months (or years) for viewers, but for Ren, Oscar has just been kidnapped twice in 24 hours, and in the course of one day he was in the 4v1 fight with Neo and the 4v1 fight(s) with the Hound, being casually dismantled every time, despite the numerical advantage. It's almost more surprising that any of these 18-21 year olds aren't feeling overwhelmed by and inadequate to meet the challenges ahead.
Callie Summers
2024-07-28 19:59:35 +0000 UTCSalem's line "I do hate repeating myself" is very similar to a line used by Cinder in V3 during the flashback with Emerald. I believe Salem has used that line before and Cinder is trying to copy the sense of power she felt from Salem in that moment, trying to use whatever she can to feel more powerful... it's just sad really, power for power's sake
Harley Johnston
2024-07-28 04:47:12 +0000 UTCBUT I completely get people who do think ren is just being an a hole for no reason. Even tho I think he was right, It’s a bad time for him to have voiced this. They just came off a massive failure of not being able to save Oscar and I’m sure yang and jaune already felt like crap. But it’s not exactly easy to choose when your pent up feelings that have been piling up and building over time decide to burst out. And throwing blame around is always gonna come off as an insult even if you are right. Especially if you are yelling it lol. So even tho yang pretty much said the same thing ren just said at the start of this volume as the reason why she wanted to split up, she was putting all blame on ruby. Now that she’s being included in the blame, she’s taking it as an insult and got defensive. Meanwhile jaune just wanted to de-escalate and get back on track, poor guy.
Mia White
2024-07-28 00:44:38 +0000 UTCI honestly agree with a lot of what ren said so I think that kept me from seeing that scene in a negative light. I think everything started to go wrong from the moment that ruby decided to not tell ironwood the whole truth. It’s never bad to play things close to the chest but as the guy who was gonna be directing everything and making a bunch of sacrifices, he deserved to know the full picture from the outset. And everything has just piled up from there. So many decisions they made were wrong but in the moment they didn’t seem to be. Like having a premature winning party for the election that ended up being a massacre. Ren was the only person who said that was a bad idea. (Weiss was the only other person who voiced that she thought it was too early to be celebrating a victory before it was secured and decided to go to the movies instead with Jaune and Oscar) And once he took his eyes off of the crowd to kiss Nora, people were slaughtered and you could see him getting more and more serious after that. Trying to focus more. And then he slipped up again when neo used Nora against him. Another bad decision was Yang and Blake telling Robin about the plan and not telling anyone else that they told her. They were right that Robin wasn’t their enemy but the plan was a secret and if something is a group secret and you bring someone else into that group secret, you should let the group know. They have just made a lot of decisions that came back to bite them so ren is blaming himself, that’s true, but also he’s not wrong that in hindsight a lot of their COLLECTIVE decisions led to bad outcomes. And Yang made this same point earlier in the volume when she was explaining why she wanted to not follow ruby’s lead anymore. Because she felt like ruby’s decisions led to things not going well. The only people who didn’t make any bad decisions so far is Oscar, Weiss, and Jaune. And it shows, they are the ones with the most level heads this volume and doing a lot to make good plans (Oscar influenced the team to not think of splitting up as something bad or permanent), supporting the others (Jaune relating to ren and trying to talk him down despite being insulted by him) and keeping people safe (Weiss taking injured Nora to her house even tho it’s a place she would like to not be).
Mia White
2024-07-28 00:26:01 +0000 UTCThis is one of my favorite episodes of volume 8. There's definitely a lot to unpack with everything up to this point so far. I definitely didn't like the way that Ren lashed out at Jaune the way he did. But he did make some valid points. When Yang brought up most of their accomplishments, a lot of them were because of sheer dumb luck. But they finally had to deal with much bigger choices, and even bigger consequences. They failed to save Oscar, Salem has one of the relics, and they still don't know how to stop Salem. So I think it's understandable for him to be as upset as he is. Oscar getting tortured was intense! Salem does a great job of showing why she is so powerful, and yes it is always satisfying when Cinder gets put in her place. My favorite part of this episode was at the end when Yang said "yeah, Ruby". She definitely wasn't talking about Ruby or Weiss.
Bryan Forquer
2024-07-28 00:25:44 +0000 UTCIt’s really amazing to see how far Jaune has come since volume one. That’s what gets me the most about this episode.
Leeroy
2024-07-27 21:44:17 +0000 UTCMy interpretation of Ren to this point: He feels like the Huntsman label brings with it a lot of pressure (which tbf it does) At Beacon, Haven, and before Atlas, they were scrappy underdogs, any victory was a nice surprise. There's a shot focused on him when Penny activates their licenses, and I think it's because, for him, the bar of expectations got raised. He sees Ironwood, and the Ace Ops, and sees them as mature and grown up, and feels that's what he's expected to be. There's also the fact that one of the last things his dad said to him was "Take Action". And in V7 he saw Ironwood as a man of action, always busy, always working (which is why he didn't like the day off for the election.) Thankfully Ren didn't side with Ironwood *after* this, and stuck with his team. But I REALLY like that we see some different opinions within the heroes (similarly with Yang and Ruby doing separate things), it makes them feel more alive to me.
Lucifer_Crowe
2024-07-27 21:24:14 +0000 UTCRen and Yang's scene has always been one of my favourites, they have such opposite personalities (even moreso than Ren does to Nora and Yang does to Blake already) and they both use martial arts in different ways.
Lucifer_Crowe
2024-07-27 18:14:29 +0000 UTCHonestly there’s a point in a future episode I think it would have been good to bring her up. But I think they wanted to keep it subtle there.
SavvySpark
2024-07-27 18:00:37 +0000 UTCAnother great reaction! You made some good points, but just a couple of details to clarify: Cinder: She was not the second-in-command to Torchwick. She was in charge of that operation at Beacon on Salem's behalf, but yes, she did take a lot of her pride / self-worth in the fact that Salem picked her for that, and - as Salem said in Chapter 1 of this Volume "I chose you to be my vessel for the Maidens", implying that Salem has been looking for someone for a while before settling on Cinder. Cinder is difficult to get a real read on her motivations, because we don't know her origin story up to this point. We can make some inferences based on her words and her actions, but nothing concrete has been revealed. She told Winter last Volume that "You Atlas elites are all the same. You think by hoarding power it'll be yours forever... well, I refuse to starve," and Raven pointed out during her fight with Cinder that Cinder "turned herself into a monster for power". Ren: My personal headcanon (and somewhat implied in this episode and the final chapter of last Volume) is Ren is still suffering from a lot of trauma. He faced some of that when they killed the Nucklavee at his old home village in Volume 4, but he was only a kid when he and Nora met, and we don't know everything that happened to the two of them in those years between the destruction of his village and their arrival at Beacon, other than that they've been together all that time. Ren's the strong and silent type yes, and I think that is enhanced by his Semblance, which allows him to cloak others. It was mentioned in Volume 5 that "some believe your personality determines your Semblance, while others say that its the other way around". Ren's Semblance is all about masking emotions to hide from the Grimm, and I think he's been doing that for his whole life at this point, hiding what he feels and adopting this serene, unflappable persona. Now that they're being considered to be adults, and all of these expectations are on them, and they're being confronted over and over by failures, his facade is starting to crack. He's also struggling because he feels for Nora too, and he doesn't know how to deal with it. He's feeling things he's been suppressing for a long time, and he's struggling to get back to that zen space, and he can't quite manage it. Salem and the Grimm: Salem doesn't fully create the Grimm. They were created by the God of Darkness, but when Salem basically hijacked his realm, and jumped into the dark pools the Grimm spawn from, she gained some control over them, and I'm sure she's been tapping into her magic over the centuries / millennia to adapt them to her purpose. She's manipulating the pools to create what she wants, the same way she used her powers at the end of Volume 6 to add wings to the gorilla-based Grimm. She called the Hound an experiment, which means she's probably done some more manipulating, and its relatively recent, since Cinder hadn't seen it before and actually seemed surprised. We also know she's capable of manipulating Grimm in other ways because Cinder also has a Grimm arm and hand - grafting Grimm parts onto a human implies a lot of pretty nasty stuff that Salem is doing or has done. And poor Oscar! He's really in trouble this time.... poor boy!
Megan Saunders
2024-07-27 16:53:53 +0000 UTCSo they showed in V4 that Salem's hideout is built over the Pools of Grimm, the dark liquid created by the God of Darkness. Those pools spawn Grimm seemingly infinitely. But Salem can then reshape those Grimm. In the post credits scene of a previous Volume we see her making flying monkey Grimm
Erimgard13
2024-07-27 16:47:41 +0000 UTCWe finally hear Qrow's thoughs on what happened with Clover's death. He feels like Clover pushed him into an alliance with Tyrian (he did!) but also feels immense guilt over going along with it, despite a lack of other options. Clover's death was like a loss of hope for somehow rising above his bad luck. Robyn is really great for him right now. We're getting there on Cinder. Even though I will always hate her on some level for what she did to Pyrrha, having seen everything that's been released, I often feel sad when I see Cinder wilt like this. But she didn't necessarily wilt this time, she's just going behind Salem's back to "check out something" (uh huh, sure). I find it ironic that Cinder is constantly used by those she serves, and in turn instead of that creating empathy for those under HER, she just turns right around and lords it over them as well -- she doesn't care at all about Mercury and Emerald (OR Neo) aside from what they can do for her when she needs it. I always smile when Cinder is ranting while walking to the ship, and Neo just floats the whole way down the slope, to land and sit delicately at the bottom, kind of rolling her eyes. She's such a great character, where you can totally read and feel her although she cannot speak a word. Ren is pretty dark right now, he's angry at himself for failing so much -- we saw him start this at the end of Season 7 until they had to flee Atlas grounds -- and he's lashing out at everyone else. There is an "a-ha" moment when Jaune thinks Yang is talking about Ruby. Jaune perhaps is the best adjusted of them all, oddly. He could have responded in so many ways when Ren laid into him, but he's willing to own up to his mistakes and keeps trying to pull his friends together. He's improved so much since his early days. I like that Yang was easily the best one on the bikes, while Jaune struggled with them. But Jaune comes up with some great ideas during the chase. There seems to be so much in RWBY where every character (even villains) are dealing with trauma in some way, and their responses reveal who they are as people. These opening episodes always feel kind of negative and dark to me (is Harriet ever NOT angry about something?) but I really enjoy where things go from here.
Jennywocky
2024-07-27 16:40:37 +0000 UTCNot sure if it's been explicitly stated, but I think Salem can only manipulate the Grimm, like forced evolution or something (like giving the Gorilla Grimm wings), they naturally come from the pools of the Dark Brother's (god) magic. Remember she gave Cinder a new arm made from Grimm too, so she seems to be experimenting with what she can really do still.
Alex Smith
2024-07-27 16:37:36 +0000 UTCI heard that originally Ren was going to bring up Pyrrha but the writers felt that was too much
Historia-Europa
2024-07-27 16:36:46 +0000 UTCCinder was always above Torchwick and Adam, she gave orders to others and they followed them. In Salem's group Cinder would be considered equal to everyone except Salem. But they all have their specialties.
CMDRZero
2024-07-27 16:24:22 +0000 UTCHonestly I don’t think Cinder cares about praise from Salem. To her Salem is just a means to power. Which is why she just went and did what she wanted even after Salem told her not to and she basically looks for any means to subvert her whenever Salem’s orders conflict with her own goals. I think this is the first time they’ve acknowledged that Robyn’s semblance can not only see if others are telling the truth, it also works in reverse and reveals if Robyn herself is telling the truth. I like that the animators have been consistent in giving Yang the habit of touching her hair when she’s nervous or in an awkward situation. Try not to be too hard on Ren. He’s just an angsty boy trying to work through stuff.
SavvySpark
2024-07-27 16:23:27 +0000 UTC
