I'm not sure how to react to that. Astonishment will have to do for now.
This final episode did not exactly end the series on an happy and upbeat note in much the same way that sticking ones hand in boiling fry oil will not exactly result in relief from sunburn. However it did provide the audience with surprises and emotional gravity in copious amounts.
The ending of this leaves several issues unresolved and lays the groundwork for either another season (or perhaps a sequel series).
Holy crap.
Ozpin engages Cinder and sends Pyrrha and Jaune to get help...but his fight is a short one and Cinder makes for the tower. Pyrrha kisses Jaune good-bye and after making sure he cannot follow her into the fight runs off to buy time for the others to gather and stop Cinder.
Pyrrha, who has been an awesome character and , in many ways, a Mary Sue done right, puts up a tremendous fight against Cinder, but the villainess is, by now, something of an eldritch horror. Pyrrha does everything right and genuinely annoys Cinder, but it was to no avail, An arrow she actually disintegrated in flight reforms and imbeds itself in her heel, and, thus paralyzed, the proud heroine suffers the ignominy of being on her knees when the death blow is delivered and is reduced to whimpers as Cinder consumed her soul and her powers.
The screen cap can't do the scene justice...THAT was hard to watch. The quivering and the gasping, and the visage of this awesome person paralyzed in a position of utter supplication was the stuff of nightmares and made for one of the more disturbing death scenes in recent years.
Meanwhile, Jaune (who Pyrrha had kissed, stuffed in a locker and propelled to the other side of town) suffers the cumulation of his worst nightmares. He could do NOTHING except beg Ruby and Weiss to try and save Pyrrha...he has to confront the fact that he is AGAIN the fifth wheel, the failure, the man who cannot rise to the occasion. That he has punched far above his weight and exceeded all expectations can be of no consolation to him as his inability to offer so much as a distraction has resulted in the woman he loved, the only person who ever showed him a kindness not founded in pity, dyeing the most horrible death imaginable. The only mercy shown him is that he did not witness her death.
That wretched visage is reserved for Ruby, who unlike Jaune is able to arrive just in time to be too late. She goes a little nuts and.....
The last 20 minutes are a brief montage of the characters dealing with the ramifications of the battle. It seems that Ruby has a rather spectacular hidden power that is activated by watching awesome characters die. It also results in her being in a coma for some days, and it does not actually thwart the villains plan so much as alter it slightly. The tremendous Lovecraftian abomination that was oozing out monsters was put to sleep by Ruby's manifestation of her powers, however, while not adding to the local monster population it , in its slumber serves as a beacon drawing in all the creatures of darkness to the university section of the city, which has been largely abandoned except for the various monster hunters trying to retake it. The global internet and communications array is down and the planet's various kingdoms and smaller outposts of humanity are now isolated.
Blake is missing, Weiss has been recalled to her nation by her father and Yang, now missing her right arm, is sinking deep into a bitter depression. Before leaving, Ruby's uncle Qrow confides in her two pieces of information. Ruby's late mother had a similar power and while it is known, it is so rare that is literally the stuff of legends.Also, with Ozpin gone (presumably eaten by Cinder) Qrow is taking over his organization and heading off to the Kingdom of Haven to carry on the fight in the shadows.
Fall turns to winter and Ruby quietly slips away to trek off to Haven, in the hopes that she can help to avenge her friends and save the world from the encroaching darkness.
She is joined by three highly motivated companions...
So, whether it's titled RWBY, JNRR, AVRR, RAVL, RRAV, NJRL, LAVR, RALV, RLAV ,NARR, VAR,L NRAR, JNR,L ARVR, VARR, NRLJ, NRJL, ARLN, ARLV, JRRV or perhaps LRVA there is a good chance that we'll be seeing more of this story, which is good as the many worrisome implications of that stinger really need to be elaborated upon.
On the other hand the prospect of seeing Jaune burned at the stake is a bit off-putting.
If, as seems likely, that comes to pass, then rest assured, we're going to give it a try.
1
I think Rooster Teeth made it clear that the intentions are for at least one more series, and I suspect they actually have plans for this storyline to go on for two or more additional series. The plot in the third series seemed a bit sloppier, but there's really only one major problem I'm having...I don't understand the four sisters/seasons thing at all. They built it up like they were literal forces of nature in human form, but then
the previous Fall went down pretty easy...and after Cinder
had absorbed the power it took a distraction for her to get away from Pyrrha...and yet if she's able to just crush/break a weapon, why did she need a distraction? Which get's me to one other problem I'm having with the story: to quote Dragonball Z Abridged's Vegeta, "Power Levels are BS."
Posted by: Ben at Sun Feb 14 21:31:43 2016 (DRaH+)
2
"after Cinder ]had absorbed the power it took a distraction for her to get away from Pyrrha...and yet if she's able to just crush/break a weapon, why did she need a distraction?"
Pyrrha is extremely skilled and she's fighting in a room full of giant ferro-magnetic clock gears and such. She is a female magneto and so has astounding leverage and even...tourqe at her disposal. This is Pyrrha's turf, and Pyrrha is a prodigy anyway. Cinder is competent, but she is relying on raw power and clearly underestimated Pyrrha's subtlety and ability to get inside her 6. Pyrrha was fighting very smart (aside from the larger error that involved engaging an Eldritch horror alone). As it turns out the raw power WAS enough. Pyrrha successfully deflected that arrow...destroyed it outright to boot...but it just didn't matter.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Feb 14 21:48:39 2016 (AaBUm)
3An arrow she actually disintegrated in flight reforms
It looked more to me that the arrow flowed around the thrown shield, more than being destroyed in flight... an intentional, as opposed to reactionary, act.
I expect that we'll see Pyrrha again. One doesn't throw away a character like that.
Posted by: Wonderduck at Sun Feb 14 23:32:34 2016 (KiM/Y)
