RWBY V8 C7

## Plot

The episode starts with the Atlas military battling the Grimm in the farmland. Ironwood tells all of the citizens to evacuate to the nearest subway station for shelter. The first two minutes of this episode are basically just panic, chaos, and fear incarnate. Winter and the Ace Ops have arrested Jaune, Ren, and Yang, and are taking them back to Atlas. They hear over the radio that the military can't get the hard light shields back on because the generators took too much damage. Ironwood tells them not to waste resources then. He's informed that bombs and missiles haven't made a dent in the whale. Winter informs him that Penny is still MIA, but they've arrested Jaune, Yang, and Ren. He tells her to await further orders and not to let them out of her sight. Yang remarks that they're still just following orders, and then everyone sees the whale. Jaune says that's where the Grimm took Oscar. Ironwood tells Winter and the Ace Ops that the whale could be vulnerable from the inside. The science team is developing a bomb. When it's ready, they'll drop it off as close to the whale as possible, and Winter's team will deliver it on foot. She says they'll get it done, even though she's clearly horrified, and Jaune points out that Oscar is in there. Yang says they can't do this. Winter's right hand shakes before she balls it into a fist. Meanwhile, Emerald watches as Salem sends out more Grimm ooze, clearly disturbed, before she decides to do something. It's revealed that she can even use her Semblance on Grimm, which she does to hide from a Seer. She heads to the room where Oscar and Ozpin are being tortured and eavesdrops on their conversation with Hazel. He's berating him for the stunt he pulled in the throne room. Salem would've killed him then and there if it wasn't for his ability to reincarnate. Ozpin asks Hazel if he's ever wondered why she recruited him specifically to help her find the relics. He tells him that they share a vision. She's going to create a new world order, one without kingdoms or huntsmen academies. Ozpin tells Hazel that when Salem gets all four relics, there won't be a world left. She's been alive for… basically forever. All she wants now is release. She just wants to die, even if it takes everyone else with her. I knew it! Guess who called that immediately after The Lost Fable originally aired over two years ago? That's right, me! The one who doesn't make theories, but rather, extremely educated guesses. I'm amazing. I'm awe-inspiring. Hazel thinks that Ozpin is lying and says that Salem can't be killed. When she came for him, he killed her over and over again, but she wouldn't stay dead. At most, she was gone for a few hours. When he was too tired to lift his arms anymore, she showed him that through her, he could have the vengeance he needed. Ozpin tells him that's why Salem came for him. Because she could make him believe that this is what he needed. He yells that this is what Ozpin deserves, and he agrees. But Oscar, the people of Atlas, and all of Remnant *don't*. Hazel hasn't done what he's done for justice. He's done it for himself. Because Salem pushed him to believe it would help him. It hasn't. We switch scenes to the Schnee manor. Weiss appears to have finished redressing Nora's bandages. Nora asks what she's good for now, but she still doesn't open her eyes. She's been in a state of semi-consciousness and unconsciousness now for longer than she's been awake this volume. I know the timeline of this volume is only two or three days max, but if this was the real world, I think she would've slipped into a coma by now. And now I just made myself sad because I'm an idiot. Blake and Ruby enter and ask Weiss how she is. She's done what she can, but Nora needs a doctor. Blake hopes that May is able to reach the others. She really hopes they're okay. The whale is making Grimm faster than the Atlas military can kill them. The city won't stand a chance unless they stop it. Ruby doesn't know what they can even do against it. It's way bigger than a Leviathan, and she couldn't even kill the one in Argus without help from Cordovin. Weiss wonders if they should just wait for help to arrive, if it even comes. Ruby wonders how it all got like this. May enters, and tells them that she was able to get in touch with Fiona. No one has heard from their friends in awhile, and with everything else going on, the last thing they're worried about is a couple of missing kids. May wants to get back to the crater to defend it, since Atlas has its military, but they only have each other. People are dying. Weiss tells her that people are dying in Atlas too, and points out that she has family here. However, May says that when she chose to protect Mantle, the Marigolds disowned her, which meant she wasn't their son anymore, and she made sure that everyone knew that she wasn't their daughter. While I'm glad we're finally getting confirmation that May is transgender in the actual show, I've known about this for over a year, since her VA revealed it on Twitter during volume 7. May says that they have Henry, just like Weiss's parents have Whitley. She asks her whose side she's even on. Blake tells her that they've heard those words before. Ruby says that there aren't any sides. They want to help everyone. They're all facing Salem together, and the only way they'll get out of it is if they work together. May asks her how exactly they do get out of it, and no one answers. Emerald has a fellow eavesdropper in Whitley. Ozpin tells Hazel about the curse that was placed upon Salem by the gods. If she can divide humanity beyond repair, and bring all four relics together, she believes that her curse may finally be broken. The gods will rule against them, and destroy Remnant once and for all. Hazel doesn't believe him, so Oscar takes over. He says that her name is Jinn. If you want her to come out of the lamp, you say her name. She can still answer one more question. Hazel doesn't believe it's true at first after everything Oscar went through without giving Salem the password. However, Oscar tells him that he's giving *him* the password, and hoping he'll find the truth for himself. Emerald tells Mercury everything, but he doesn't believe it. Oscar is a prisoner, so he'll say what he thinks will get him out. Salem has ordered Mercury and Tyrian to go to Vacuo. Even if what Oscar said was true, they can't stop Salem. Tyrian overhears the last part of what Mercury says to Emerald, and reveals that Salem is indeed going to destroy the world, which disturbs them. They leave in an Atlas airship. Emerald might get past any potential security measures with her Semblance, take the lamp, and use the last question instead, since her allusion is Aladdin. Yang says the Ace Ops can't blow up the whale with Oscar still inside. Jaune asks Winter for the chance to rescue him first. They could be their test run. They don't know what they'll be facing inside, so they'll scope it out for them, and look for Oscar while they're there. Marrow is shocked that they're willing to go inside it alone. Yang asks him if he'd do the same for Elm, Harriet, and Vine. Elm tells her that they don't let feelings get in the way of making the right call. Trading three lives for one is stupid. Ren finally speaks up and tells her that it's not, proving that he's snapped out of his funk. Oscar is their friend. They'll do whatever it takes to find him, because they care about him. Harriet tells him that feelings don't matter, the job matters. When you lose someone on your team, you move on and replace them. Just like Marrow replaced Tortuga, and Winter replaced Clover. That's not the thing you want to say to even the quietest member of team JNPR. Also, Tortuga means turtle, and this person was likely the Tortoise to Harriet's Hare allusion. Ren yells that ***no one*** is replaceable. This has some real world meaning and context, since Neath is voicing his brother's character. Suddenly, his Semblance *evolves*. Now he can see what people are really feeling based on the color of flower petals swirling around them. He can see that Harriet doesn't actually believe what she's saying. She's furious about losing Clover, and she misses him. She yells that he doesn't know anything about her. Aside from the petals and the people themselves when Ren focuses on them, everything is in black and white, and voices are muffled, which brings to mind his Semblance training in volume 7 on the day of the election. Harriet's petals are red and orange, as well as Elm's, and they float up quickly, like the embers of a fire. They symbolize anger. Marrow's are dark blue and float down slowly. They symbolize sadness. Vine's are green and slowly swirling around in a circle. I think they symbolize calm. Ren's own petals are falling slowly, and they're pink. He realizes that's why the Ace Ops lost to team RWBY. They try to fight how they feel about each other, so they'll never truly work as a team. Elm tells him to shut up and says he doesn't know what he's talking about. Winter stops her before she can punch him, and tells everyone to calm down. She agrees to let them go inside the whale. When Harriet objects, she reminds her that she outranks her. She warns them that if they're not out in time, they'll drop the payload no matter what. They drop them off in the farmland and return their weapons to them. Ren tells Marrow that he doesn't like this either. In fact, he doesn't want to be a part of it at all anymore. He looks at Harriet before he says that he has a job to do, and he's going to do it. That kind of reminds me of what Jaune told Ren in a previous episode. They just have different ideas on what that job is. Before he leaves with Yang and Jaune, Ren tells Winter that he knows she doesn't want to be a part of this either. We see that her petals are red, orange, green, and dark blue. Ruby wonders if Qrow and Robyn can help them if they can figure out where they're being held and break them out. May tells her that this isn't a situation where everyone wins. They can either come with her to help in Mantle, or she can drop them off near the front lines if they still want to help Atlas. Qrow and Robyn can't save them. They have to choose what to do. Before they can, they hear someone knock on the door. Weiss opens it, and it's revealed to be Klein. Whitley called him, and tells him that the patient is in Weiss's room. He tells his sister that Nora needs a doctor, and he didn't do it for her. She says she knows, and that's why it means so much to her. She hugs him, and he hugs her back. The sweet sibling moment is interrupted when they hear an explosion outside. Whatever it was, it made a giant, smoking crater. Ruby, Blake, and Weiss see that it's Penny, who is sparking and covered in a bright green liquid. She tells them that she's sorry before passing out. That's how the episode ends, and the mini-hiatus begins. The team announced that instead of the usual one week winter break for the holidays, they're taking a *six week break*, probably due to the pandemic forcing them all to work from home, which would slow down production, and to avoid crunch. And then not long after said break, they were hit by that awful winter storm, because Texas and capitalism sucks, so they had to delay another episode, but at the end of the day, it's really no big deal. Just do what I do and throw yourself into another fandom, or work on or look at other people's fanfiction, fan art, fan made videos (there's a lot), cosplay, reviews or reaction videos, AMVs, older soundtracks from past volumes, etc. You can pass the time however you want. Except being mad at the people who make the show, that's just stupid and nonsensical, at least to me. I understand wanting them to be better, or the best they or the thing they're making can be, but as someone who also has some experience with making something personal and putting it out there for people to judge relentlessly, it is a very vulnerable, emotionally draining, and time consuming task even without all of the feedback and meaningless noise to wade through. Someone once told me, and I'm paraphrasing here, that I should kill myself, and the world would be better off with me dead. I was a minor at the time. Could you imagine yourself, or anyone, saying that to another person, let alone a child, especially for something so inconsequential to anyone's quality of life and how much they may or may not be enjoying their day? Thank god I wasn't suicidal. But I still obsessed and agonized over that comment and what to do about it for days on end, which was far longer than I should have. I should've reported it for the harmful verbal/cyber abuse and/or bullying that it was right away and moved on with my life, which I eventually did, and I told myself that if it didn't work, I would just manually delete the comment and hope that the user didn't comment again, since I didn't know how to ban people at the time.