RWBY V9 C8

## Plot

Like the previous episode and the volume 8 finale, there is also a warning for distressing themes here, but in my opinion, it is *so much worse* this time around. Some people have pointed out that "distressing themes" isn't a specific enough content warning. Even a member of the crew supposedly commented on it. There is onscreen psychological (and arguably even physical) torture. Like, a shit ton of torture. Sure, we saw physical torture in volume 8, but those were brief scenes. This time it's basically almost the whole episode. I'd like to remind everyone that the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255, they are open 24/7 and are fluent in both Spanish and English. 988 is the phone number for the mental health hotline. Everything is confidential and free. What happens here isn't even framed as a heroic sacrifice like you'd usually see on a show like this. Also, Crunchyroll, we seriously need closed captions, as well as spoiler free thumbnails. It's bad enough when YouTubers do it. They did eventually fix it… on their third try. Rule of three and all that. The actual episode starts with Ruby continuing to run, until she sits under a tree. Little asks her why she yelled at everyone and tries to encourage her to go back, but Ruby even yells at them, telling them to go home and leave her alone, because she'll just end up getting them killed too. Little may have promised to help her, but she promised to protect people, be there for her friends, and serve Atlas as a Huntress, but she failed. She can't do this. She could never do this. She walks away. We see another butterfly. They're clearly all symbolism for the changes and metamorphosis that the characters are going through. Sometime later, Ruby wanders into the dark Jabberwalker acre and enters Neo's mansion, which shows her said mute girl's *Roman Holiday* backstory through paintings. She's hosting a tea party with illusions of dead characters to mentally torture Ruby, who finally unfolds her weapon into its scythe form, and learns that Neo wants to kill her because she still blames her for Roman's death. He's voiced by both Billy Kametz and Christopher Wehkamp here. This episode is dedicated to Billy's memory, just like the English dub of the second episode of season 4 of *Monkie Kid*. Chris also voiced Torchwick for the English dub of the *Ice Queendom* anime. I personally can't tell the difference between the two. They got all of the voice actors for the other characters back. It's revealed that Little followed Ruby. Neo wants to utterly break her first, and get her to basically you know what by drinking tea made of the leaves from the tree. So they're literal tea leaves? "You know, once Neo realized where she was, everything changed. Always loved the idea of a place to run away from it all. Do whatever you want." Illusion Ruby: "You can do whatever you want! *Be* whoever you want! You don't even have to be Ruby Rose." It's interesting that Neo still views the Ever After as a place to run away from her problems, considering that it's done the exact opposite to the other characters, basically forcing them to confront their trauma and problems head on. Sure, that helped Blake and Yang, but the others are still in the thick of it. Speaking of which, the others are looking for Ruby in the Paper Pleaser acre. Yang is especially upset and wonders why her little sister didn't just talk to them about how she was feeling. Pyrrha in volume 2, chapter 7: "But when you're placed on a pedestal like that for so long, you become separated from the people that put you there in the first place." Weiss says she probably didn't feel like she could. She's always been the one to get them through the hard times. I mean… not really? Sure, she gives inspirational speeches to characters like Oscar, Qrow, and Cordovin from time to time, but when the other girls were at their lowest in volume 4, they had to rely on other people to help them, because Ruby wasn't around: Tai for Yang, Sun and her parents for Blake, and arguably even Klein for Weiss. They mean well when they tell Ruby that they believe in her and can count on her, but that put an unbelievable amount of pressure on her to live up to everyone's expectations. It's not like they were asking her to be perfect… right? No, some of you totally were, whether you realized it or not. Yang: "I'm not going to pretend like we did everything perfectly". Hell, I'd argue that even Ruby herself thinks she's a failure if she's not perfect, both because of what she said in the previous episode, what Weiss tells Jaune in the next one, and because of this conversation between our two team leaders from all the way back in volume 1, chapter 13: "You're a leader now, Jaune. You're not allowed to be a failure." "And if we fail, then we'll just be bringing them down with us. We have to put our teammates first, and ourselves second." Yang in volume 5, chapter 7: "If Ruby sticks around, then I will too. If there's one thing I know about her, it's that she somehow always knows the right thing to do." Qrow in volume 6, chapter 2: "Do whatever you think is right, kiddo." Ruby in volume 7, chapter 4: "I'm trying to do what I think is best, but I really can't tell if what's best is what's right." "This says I'm a Huntress now, but I don't feel like I know much more than I did at Beacon." Qrow told her "That feeling never goes away." And lately, neither do her feelings of inadequacy. So! Much! Foreshadowing! Or, at the very least, the newer moments are callbacks and deconstructions of the older ones. Sadly, the real world isn't that black and white, or that simple. "I wanted to be the hero, like the stories that my mom read to me. I just wanted to do the right thing, but every step of the way, it's like… It's like there is no right thing. I've tried so hard, and I may have just done more harm than good." "It's all so heavy. It's the only thing I can feel anymore. And it never. Ever. Goes away. The feeling of not being… enough." Blake in volume 7, chapter 7: "I'm not sure there are many good options left for any of us anymore. Keeping secrets? Taking lives? It makes you wonder how far we're going to have to go to keep doing the right thing." Oscar, same episode: "The path you're heading down, where you're the only one with the answers, where you do the thing you think is right no matter the cost, it's not going to take you anywhere good." "It's okay to be afraid. You just can't let that fear control you." "I do believe in you, but not only you. I think the best thing you could do is sit down and talk with the people you're most afraid to." It's like Ruby was afraid to talk to the others about how she was feeling. Or at least that's how I interpret it. Ironwood in volume 7, chapter 11: "Sometimes, doing the right thing means making tough decisions." Also, everyone basically ignored Ruby's mini breakdown in that episode as well. It and the implications of it were literally never brought up ever again, except maybe one brief talk between Ruby and Yang in volume 8. Speaking of which, when their group split into two, I wish Yang had taken more of a leadership role and realized that it was a lot harder than she thought it would be, and she and the others hadn't been giving her little sister enough credit for leading all of them and getting them this far. It felt more like Jaune led and encouraged the rest of the group instead. As an introvert with social anxiety, if I were Ruby's age and in a similar situation, I would've been *desperate* to pass such a massive responsibility onto… literally anyone else. Like, you know, an actual adult. I wonder if that's how Ruby felt when she made it to Atlas and learned that Ironwood had something resembling an actual plan. I would've spilled my guts and passed on the pressure and leadership *instantly*. Oscar and Ozpin know that even though Ruby possesses a "spark" due to her "smaller, more honest soul", the events that have transpired have hit her just as hard as they have everyone else, she's just far better at hiding and suppressing it for everyone else's sake, which isn't healthy or constructive. Oscar: "How do you handle all of this?" She doesn't. She suppresses the hell out of it. "How are you okay with any of this?!?" She's not. Weiss to Yang in volume 5, chapter 6: "It's okay if you're not okay." Oscar: "This must be really hard on her too." Ozpin: "It most assuredly is." Ruby herself in volume 6, chapter 2: "So all those times you talked about having faith in humanity, that was just for everyone else?" Ruby, Emerald, and Oscar in volume 8, chapter 11: "So then, it's impossible." "See? If Ms. Hero with all the answers doesn't have an answer, then we have yours." "All of this doubt, and worry, and distrust, it isn't getting us anywhere." Salem from volume 3, chapter 12: "Your faith in mankind was not misplaced. When banded together, unified by a common enemy, they are a noticeable threat. But divide them, place doubt into their minds, and any semblance of power they once had will wash away." Ruby told Oscar in volume 8, chapter 1 that "We all did what we thought was best." And then Yang said this to her little sister, who adores her, in that very same episode: "Ruby, when we got here, we said we would follow your lead, but things haven't exactly worked out." Ren and Yang in volume 8, chapter 4: "We don't know the first thing about being Huntsmen. We clearly weren't ready." "–when we had to make real decisions, we got every single one wrong." "I'm not going to pretend like we did everything perfectly, but–" "But these aren't the kind of decisions we should be making because we have no idea what we're doing!" "I'm just saying what nobody else wants to. We're in way over our heads. Ruby is barely more than a kid–" Weiss and Blake in volume 2, chapter 10: "Well, she's still just a kid." "She's only two years younger. We're *all* kids." A day or two later… Blake in volume 8, chapter 8: "I know you don't always know what to do, but that's never stopped you from doing *something*." Ruby even admitted to Blake, Weiss, Klein, and Whitley in that episode that it was "all just too much." Klein's advice helped at the time, yes, but then I think Ruby used it as an excuse to avoid processing her grief and trauma in a healthy way. Or at all. And things have only gotten worse since then. Just a few chapters ago: "So, are you a Huntress? Like the ones you read about in books?" "I… I don't know." "They always saved the day, didn't they? Always knew what to do. Always won in the end." "But… life isn't like a fairy tale." Blake also told her that they all needed her, which is what her illusion/hallucination also told her. In a way, it didn't lie. Everything they said was true. Anyway, back in the present, the group hears gunfire from nearby. Ruby's Aura is quickly broken since it's just herself against several illusions: Roman, Penny, Pyrrha, Ozpin, Ironwood, and Lionheart. Clover doesn't do anything. Back when the volume had 12 episodes planned, he and Leo actually spoke to Ruby. They all blame her for their deaths and tell her that she's done more harm than good. She couldn't save Penny or Pyrrha, she couldn't stop Beacon from falling, she let Atlas fall on purpose only to lose Penny again and two relics, etc. Illusion Ironwood: "You thought you knew what was best for Atlas." Best vs. Right. The poor girl really needs an Anna or Olaf figure right now, or a song. The animators even went through the trouble of changing her model to show bruises, blood, and torn clothing, even though it only appears briefly in this one episode. Now that's dedication to your craft. When Ruby tries to fight back, the Ozpin illusion changes into Oscar, who drops dead, and the other illusions change into Qrow, Yang, Blake, Weiss, Jaune, Nora, and Ren. The world would be better off without her. And then Neo is suddenly blasted out of the illusion house by a pixel breath attack, thanks to the cat. They saved Ruby again… but it turns out that they really did have ulterior motives and malicious intentions. They've also been trying to break her down this whole time, so they can possess her. That's the real reason why they came back for Jaune after Alyx and Lewis left this world, but he had already dedicated himself to protecting the Paper Pleasers at that point. Sure, that's not healthy either, but it's better than being possessed. The cat is cursed with curiosity, so they can't ascend like other Afterans, because their purpose can never be completed. They *need* to know everything, which isn't possible, but all they really *want* to know is why their creators, who were revealed in a behind the scenes video to be the brother gods (in order to tie this volume into the main story), abandoned them and left the Ever After. They try to take over Ruby so they can go to Remnant, but Little bites them on their tail. Neo returns and bats the cat away… and also stomps on Little, presumably "killing" them. Death doesn't exist in the Ever After, death doesn't exist in the Ever After. Why do I always form attachments to intelligent rodents? Even the evil ones? Just like her teammates, her uncle, Oscar, Clover, and Ironwood, Ruby has also lost the highlights in her eyes. She doesn't look lifeless to me though. She looks broken. Hopeless. The others finally get there… and see Ruby drink the tea. She, Little, and Crescent Rose fall into a hole, which is then covered by vines. This infuriates the cat, who tells the others that they can't take them to Ruby. It's not a place you go, it's a place you know. Meanwhile, Neo contemplates taking over the Ever After, but she doesn't want that. Ruby is finally gone… and so is her reason to keep going. She just feels numb. Empty. Her eyes also look lifeless. The illusion house starts falling apart. The cat blasts the others back, turns giant sized and black and white, and decides to possess Neo instead. Jaune fails to stop them. They fly away and head to the tree. You might notice that I didn't refer to the cat as Curious even once. I can't remember if that was intentional or not when I originally wrote this (which was only three or four very stressful days ago), but I'm keeping it because I think it matches with the reveal and confirmation that the cat is evil. This is why I'm not a cat person, even when it comes to snarky and/or talking animated cats. Apologies to Luna, Artemis, and Morgana.