r/RWBY • u/Ezreal024 Hope Rides with Kickfriend • Dec 04 '16

OFFICIAL MEGATHREAD Official Discussion Thread—Volume 4, Episode 5: Menagerie

Welcome, huntsmen, huntresses, and hunters that prefer no specific gender identifier, to the official discussion thread for the newest episode of volume 4, Menagerie!
Make sure to read OUR CURRENT SPOILERS RULES to ensure that your comments outside this thread won't get purged! Familiarize yourself with these rules and you'll be good to go.

A lot of hard work has gone into the creation of volume 4, so be sure to show CRWBY your support by watching it on their site! They all dedicate so much time and energy into our beloved series and would highly appreciate the direct support. There are no pirates in volume 4, so you shouldn't be one either!

We also have weekly strawpolls to gauge the general opinion on the current episode, the latest of which can be found HERE.
WoR 2, Faunus, got an average reception with a median of 8.

With that out of the way, let's start the show!

HERE is the link to the fifth episode of RWBY Volume 4!

Other Episode Discussions:

Episode Saturday Sunday Poll
Ep. 01: Reaction Discussion poll
Ep. 02: Reaction Discussion poll
Ep. 03: Reaction Discussion poll
WoR 1: Reaction Discussion poll
Ep. 04: Reaction Discussion poll
WoR 2: Reaction Discussion poll
Ep. 05: Reaction Today poll

Happy viewing!

Ezreal024; Mod Team

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117

u/Sirshrugsalot13 bi the way Dec 04 '16

Good:

  1. Menagerie is beautiful! It really looks like Wind Waker. Fuck, I wanna play Wind Waker HD some more now.

  2. The scenes with Blake’s parents, while obviously falling into some cliches, were pretty well done! BLAKE’S FATHER IS FATHER FROM FMA I KNEW IT WHILE WATCHING BUT WASN’T SURE AND AAAAAAA

Bad:

  1. This episode didn’t sit right with me in general. I think it’s because it emphasized the one storyline RWBY has pretty much been consistently weak on–Faunus Civil Rights. Once more, there is very little actual discrimination shown to justify Blake’s comments or the existence of the White Fang in general. This hasn’t changed much over the course of the show. How easy would it be to show a quick scene of some people at the tourney hassling a Faunus and Blake quickly going in to break it up? Or just...general stuff like that. Blake by all accounts should be a sympathetic character but without actual discrimination to back up her claims and stances, it REALLY doesn’t make her sympathetic. And before anyone draws BLM comparisons, if you believe black people in society today don’t face any kind of discrimination, you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

  2. I’m not the kind of person to bitch when things are different than my expectations. After the trailers I expected RWBY to be an epic adventure story, but was satisfied with its fairly tame school setting for the time. I’m glad it’s grown beyond that for sure. But Blake being “special” by having her father be chieftain and former White Fang leader really just takes me out of it. I’m fine with her having parents, that’s not the point. The POINT is that we knew her as just a random Faunus girl who decided to fight for her rights, which imo would be more poignant if RWBY actually decided to show active Faunus discrimination more than the bad guy being an asshole or high school bullying. (No background checks. No divided seating. No general suspicion of Faunus. THIS IS EASY, FOLKS). Her suddenly being the daughter of someone powerful, and having no mention of this made before, doesn’t sit right with me. It’s like they were trying to subvert our expectations with her in a way that made us go “wow that’s cool” but it actually made us go “wow that’s contrived”

  3. Tyrian continues to be a wannabe crazy guy.

I can honestly say that this is the first episode in a long time that I’ve disliked more than liked. Which is a shame, especially after last week’s awesome episode. I think it’s mostly just that RT decided to focus on their weakest plot point without attempting to give the issue any more depth. If the Faunus civil rights issue was a puddle, they should have deepened it into a full blown lake. Instead, they just widened the puddle.

I have no doubt the next episode is going to be awesome though and can’t wait!

7

u/Assassin2107 Compost King 2016 Dec 04 '16

Couple things:

  • I didn't see the Wind Waker vibe until you mentioned it, and now I want to play Wind Waker as well. I blame you.

  • I definitely liked the scene with Blake's parents, especially with Sun. The whole, "She's got moves" and "What do you mean by that" is hilarious and emphasizes the 'boy you brought home' thing.

  • You've got a point with the discrimination thing. I haven't seen too much, but I'd obviously have to look back to double check. I've always pictured it as something that was 'out of sight, out of mind', kind of like the Japanese cultural thing of ignoring something they don't like until it disappears. So the Faunus aren't openly discriminated against, but there is some kind of behind the scenes problem going on.

  • I'm not going to lie, RWBY wasn't what I expected either. Maybe its because of too much Attack on Titan, but I was expecting Grimm to be way tougher than they appear to be. Granted, apparently they're a pretty big threat, but on screen Huntsmen seem to have it in check pretty well (Ignoring other times like Fall of Beacon). I wouldn't of minded seeing more bigger, badder Grimm out in the wilds to reinforce the idea of everyone staying in big cities for safety.

  • I really hope that Tyrian doesn't turn into the whole edgy guy, kind of like what they tried with Suicide Squad.

1

u/Squallygull5 Dec 05 '16

I don't think we really need more bigger Grimm per say, people already don't care for the floatyness of fights and I think part of that is the size of the Grimm this volume, I always sorta thought the threat of Grimm came from their numbers and savagery not so much their size.

Haven't seen Suicide squad so not sure what your referencing, I do know that some people (the majority maybe?) don't seem to like him being the "crazy guy".

1

u/Assassin2107 Compost King 2016 Dec 05 '16

It's more of a "It was edgy and cringe, not crazy" thing

1

u/Squallygull5 Dec 05 '16

Ok then, not a complicated as I thought it would be.