Arthur Watts

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>  | *You can't just be strong, you have to be smart! You can't just be deserving, you have to be worthy!*
>  **- Arthur Watts** | ”
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## Arthur Watts

### Cause of Death

Stabbed to death multiple times in the chest, throat slit, and impaled through the mandible by Jason Horne.

### Occupation

Atlas Military Scientist (formerly)
Dark Cabal Member

### Nicknames

The Good Doctor (by Tyrian)

Doctor **Arthur Watts** was a major-supporting antagonist in *RWBY* who was introduced in "The Next Step" of Volume 4. He was an associate of Salem and part of her inner circle. He was also a disgraced former scientist from Atlas who had faked his own death in the Paladin Incident. He served as the main antagonist of Volume 7.

During the Salem's assault on the city of Atlas, he was tracked by Jason Horne of which Horne preceded to quickly and brutally torture him to gain information on Cinder's whereabout and upon gaining the information, decided to kill Watts seeing an opportunity to cripple Salem's scientific operations, stabbing him in the chest multiple times, slicing his throat, and before finishing him off with swift stab through the mandible, before leaving his body for the Ace-Ops members to find.

## History

Watts was one of Salem's associates but how he came to join Salem's group is unknown.

Prior to the start of the series, Watts used to be both a scientist and a doctor in Atlas who had once worked with Pietro Polendina and other Atlesian scientists. His many creations included the network in Mantle, environmental Dust controls, and the Paladins. Watts familiarized himself with Jacques Schnee, and later faked his own death after being disgraced, causing everyone in Atlas to believe he had died in what is referred to as the "Paladin Incident."

## Personality

Watts was formal and sophisticated. He spoke in a refined accent, yet he could be arrogant and condescending, even to his allies. However, he was humble enough to not take credit for things he didn't achieve by himself, for when Salem initially thought he found out where the Spring Maiden was, he revealed it was Qrow Branwen when he spoke to Leonardo Lionheart.

Watts stated that he had a very low opinion of failure, which extended to Cinder Fall after she was defeated by Ruby Rose. He criticized and belittled Cinder and enjoyed provoking her every chance he got, especially since she couldn't talk back. He also looked down upon her underlings, Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black. However, Salem chastised him for his needless "malignance", and he avoided speaking out of line in her presence. When not in Salem's presence he would accurately point to why the person failed and how they could improve very bluntly and very rarely showed regret for what he said. However, his tendency to insult people ended up backfiring and got him harmed as seen with individuals like Cinder and Ironwood.

Arthur also had a tendency to become interested in new topics of study. Case in point, when he and Lionheart reported to Salem about the location of the Spring Maiden, Arthur showed immense interest in the Seer. Because of this habit, he showed no interest in unlocking his own Semblance due to believing that the time needed would be better used for his research.

Even before his apparent fall from grace in his field, Arthur had a self-serving and strategic mindset, creating a backdoor in Mantle's security network for his own personal use and potential exploitation. He was shown to be spiteful and vengeful, with his apparent motive behind joining Salem being rage against Ironwood and Pietro Polendina, claiming Ironwood never appreciated his genius and made an effort to spite James after he managing to get Jacques Schnee on his side.

This grudge against Ironwood and Pietro also heavily emphasized that Watts, similar to his associate Cinder, possessed a massive ego and intense pride in his abilities and talents, and took great offense when Ironwood refused to acknowledge the greatness of his genius and felt a severe blow to his pride when the General selected Pietro's work over his own. An aspect of this is the fact that Watts was never able to wrap his head around the idea of a soul transfer, and he greatly underestimated Penny's cognitive capabilities because of this.

Watts was rather sadistic, as shown in his evident satisfaction in trapping James Ironwood's organic left arm during their fight within Amity Tower, and when he laughed when he armed Ironwood's bomb after Harriet failed too. In "The Enemy of Trust", Watts contently smiled when he saw Salem and her incoming army finally arrived in Atlas due to believing she would destroy the Kingdom. However, he didn't relish in the pain and fear of his enemies to the same extent as his colleagues, Cinder Fall and Tyrian Callows.

He was also a cunning and opportunistic individual as when he was coerced into working for Ironwood with the threat of being shot if he didn't comply, Watts was able to take advantage of a moment of distraction from Ironwood and his subordinates to discretely hack into Penny and caused her to fall to the ground before managing to make it look like it wasn't his fault, and taunted Ironwood into throwing a Scroll at him which he hid and took with him when Ironwood's soldiers escorted him back to his cell, allowing him to contact Salem while in prison.

When threatened by Cinder in "Ultimatum", Watts showed no fear of dying. Notably, instead of freaking out when she held him by the edge of building, he harshly called her out on all of her failures. However, when interrogated by Jason Horne, he was shown screaming out in fear and pain begging to be spared, suggesting he did fear dying, just not by Cinder's hand.