RWBY Discussion: Quantity Over Quality

I've really struggled to write this video script I feel the topic of discussing the bloated cast of ruby is worth mentioning but I've also had issues figuring out where to start and what the point of the video should be basically this video boils down to there are too many characters in Ruby but I couldn't figure out why I cared so much well after some contemplation I finally figured that out so I'm gonna take some time to go over what makes Ruby's large cast such a problem how it's affected the story and characters and go over the benefits to trimming it down let's go large casts are par for the course with anime especially shown in anime so why am I and so many others getting all up in arms about Ruby's bloated character roster well things like Sailor Moon and dragon posies seem to get a pass well there are two factors in it one Ruby introduces characters way quicker than its contemporaries let's look at the original Sailor Moon anime for comparison Sailor Mercury is the first one to join us Augie in the group she's not introduced to the show until episode 8 for 8 episodes we're just following the titular character Luna Tuxedo Mask and the villains and then the next Sailor Scout doesn't appear until episode 10 there's a bunch of Sailor Senshi but they're introduced to us in a staggered way we get to spend plenty of time with each one before a new member of the team is introduced in comparison by episode 8 ruby has introduced twelve important characters held by Episode two we have seven recurring good guys introduced to us this is a big reason as to why people don't like how large Ruby's ensemble is they just throw every character at us and rapid succession without giving any of them screen time this results in stuff like Ren being little more than a background character for four years and yang doing nothing important before getting her arm chopped off the sheer amount of people being thrown at us means none of them have time to get established or develop before we're getting introduced to another one but this isn't the only issue ruby has there's another problem with the big cast number two everyone is presented as important in Ruby what happens more often than not is that a character will be introduced with a lot of pomp and circumstance implying there going to be an important member of the story and then they'll just disappear and never return remember when Cardin was presented as an important threat remember how sage and scarlet were in volume two is opening despite only making brief appearances in one episode of volume three remember how team coffee showed up just to steal the spotlight for volume two's finale and only return to fill out the roster of the tournament this is a constant in Ruby where every single character is given to the audience like they're worth caring about just to ultimately waste screen ton that could have and should have been for the actual heroes of the show and then get tossed aside forever there are 90 named characters in Ruby to put that into perspective there are only 52 Z fighters and Dragon Ball but you know those numbers aren't quite accurate yeah there may be 52 Z fighters but turtle certainly isn't doing anything important and no one's pretending they are and there may be 90 named characters in Ruby but like half of those are the participants of the vytal festival we never thought they'd be coming back so let's call those numbers a bit of the 50 Tuesday fighters 28 of them are important recurring characters of the cast that's still a lot but not as much as Ruby ruby has presented us with 38 heroes that are implied to be pivotal to the story let's all keep in mind that Goku's collected all those friends over the course of 34 years rubies racked up 10 more important characters in only six and that's not including the fuckload of villains but I think we should still be fair while the show presents everyone as vital to the plot we all know that some of these characters aren't actually all that necessary so let's just ignore all that build up around people like Glinda and winter and take a look at the characters who have actually made an impact to the story I have to keep coming up with these caveats to trim down the cast to an acceptable size oh of the 21 important actually recurring good guys who have impacted the plot only 13 are still alive I shouldn't have to do that especially since the showrunners don't seem to know who is important or not team coffee come out of nowhere did one cool thing and vanished but they're getting a light novel Oscar is added to the cast as a deuteragonist and is playing a pivotal role in the plot but we never get to see him develop on screen neo disappears for years and has then just brought back out of the blue and we're all supposed to care about her now penny helped push the plot forward while also helping Ruby develop and she's just an afterthought when talking about puras death it's a cast full of characters were told to think are worth a damn while in reality every character just shows up long enough to do something in place of the actual protagonists and then are thrown out of the show to do nothing more than be a character in a mobile game so with all that established let's look at as previously mentioned every character is presented as important which has caused this dilemma where there are way too many people active in the plot the list of characters we need to keep track of and expect to make a meaningful impact on the story is massive Ruby Weiss Blake yang Jean Ren Nora Oscar crow Mariah Osman Salem Watts Tyrion hazel cinder emerald mercury neo Raven Ironwood Jacques and that's not even including the slew of essential characters who our family have been left behind or are dead the show's got like seven deuteragonist s-- we already have four main protagonists to try to squeeze some development out of we also bloat the cast with so many B characters especially since RT Davies out its runtime it's such a weird way team rwby are treated like one entity who all had to share their runtime yang doesn't do anything in volume one but team Ruby got to have adventures in the forest and deal with the White Fang yang was excluded but it's like the directors don't care because team Ruby in some degree was involved but then they slot out chunks of time for each individual deuteragonist why turned the spotlight away from our protagonists so often and for so many different people this creates a situation where our heroes only are given enough time to drag the plot forward while the PCAST are only given enough time to develop during the stories lolz the B characters are wholly unimportant to the story but the protagonists are never given the time to become fleshed out or develop personally with the huge amount of people the writers don't know who to prioritize or develop during a volume everyone gets a chance to shine but at the cost of the four main characters having to wait their turn don't get me wrong it's a good thing to care about the supporting cast and to let them grow as well but since it's so big we spent whole volumes with some of the main girls doing little to nothing as the B characters take charge over and over again for the brief moments they get to take precedent and this is not a problem unique to the heroes first if we're gonna mention the bad guys we should probably also point out how [ __ ] many there are there are eight main villains even if we cut out all the deuteragonist and only follow team Ruby's adventures that would mean there'd be 12 central people to keep track of but since we don't have the luxury of cutting out juniper and the others this show has a main cast consisting of 19 characters the villains double how many people we need to care about and expect to impact the plot but the real kicker is they never do salem is uninvolved with the heroes with the most active she got being her killing one of her subordinates Tyrion and Hazel were presented as threats but just ran back home to hide after losing once Watts has done literally nothing for three years neo has no character outside of looking either pissy or sad and hasn't even seen the heroes after her return and mercury does so little has so little agency in his actions and has a little character that he could be replaced with one of juniors goons and nothing would change from the show most of the villains are just the idea of a threat sitting around a gloomy castle cinder is the only central villain actively doing [ __ ] and emeralds the only central villain who's been allowed to develop but how could this be with so many bad guys why haven't they been used more because they keep just adding throwaway villains to the show there may be eight main villains but the show has had twenty three different antagonists why why present team carnal like there gonna be a recurring problem for John and the others why throw fennec Corsican Ilia a Blake washes at menagerie rather than just have her face Adam while they're on that note why give Blake a personal antagonist and Adam that just forces her to ignore the central conflict of team which why make up a shitty lieutenant for Weiss to face on the train rather than give her an important character to fight why introduce Leo just to have him die after getting maybe 40 minutes of screen time well I introduced corto into the cast when she does nothing for the story and whose role could have been filled with any number of already established characters they're constantly ignoring their own antagonists to instead shower the heroes and one-off bad guys for no reason it's the exact same problem as the protagonists complete with the directors not knowing who should be taking center stage why is emerald the only allowed to grow or show remorse she's one of the least important characters to the story but gets to develop because she's cute meanwhile despite all her screen times cinder is the exact same as when the show first started because she's evil their priorities and character development seem totally beholden to what the fans cry about the most and whoever is the newest addition to the cast Myles and Carrie seemed infinitely more interested in introducing and exploring their new characters they came up with rather than utilizing the ones already established in the show only seeming to waver to appease fans outcry for more fanservice and all this comes together to create an ensemble that's hard to care about their designs being cool is the biggest thing that influences which ones are my favorite no one gets the proper amount of screen time to allow these kids to really grow with the exception of Jean and Pyrrha and any arcs the main cast actually get to have make no impact on their character lost an arm and didn't change abuse by her father and didn't change the group are the same characters as they were introduced to us as little more than a handful of archetypes even after six years of the show running Ruby's still naive and innocent Weiss is still cold and proper Blake is still standoffish and melancholic yang is still hot-headed and confident the only way these kids are allowed to change is their outfits meanwhile all the times I could have been given to offer the group some development was instead used to introduce useless character after character over and over and over again well the long and short of it is that they need to trim down the cast and while the simplest solution is kill off the superfluous characters that's also a pretty short-sighted way of going about it so what are some ways they could trim the fat without just nuking the school option one have some characters stay behind morena by all means shouldn't accompany the kids after Atlas and really there's no reason for her to stick around too long anyway and she's not the only one who could choose to sit out the adventure at least for a while Crowe could also call it quits while in Atlas maybe he chooses to stay and help Ironwood maybe he decides to get some help with his alcohol dependency an excuse could be made for any number of the cast to leave the adventuring party doing this would allow the four main girl some elbow room to grow while also keeping the others left behind on standby in case they're needed in the future and this isn't just a solution for the heroes with concert hinting at emerald switching sides giving her and maybe also mercury a good reason to ditch the Council of evil could not only offer the two a chance to develop a little but also make room for the real bad guys to take center stage option to split up the group the adventures at Brunswick farm proved that separating juniper from the main plot allowed for way more development and socializing within the group Artie could have the kids divide and conquer Jean Ren and Nora could go off with Oscar to handle something elsewhere while team Ruby continues working on delivering the relic to a safe location Jean Ren and Nora leave to help with the reconstruction of beacon Kron Oscar take over the responsibilities of the lamp and team rwby head off to find the next relic simply dividing the cast into bite-size chunks would help with allowing everyone to get involved without crowding the screen with one liners option three kill some people while not the best solution character deaths can be beneficial let's say the heroes get jumped by cinder and neo if neo managed to kill off Maria it allowed the protagonists more motivation to want to take neo down other than just her being the antagonists Lackey it would give the audience a reason to dislike neo anyone make space in the cast but really the best use of the murder button is against the villains Adams not a problem anymore neither is Leo killing bad guys gives the heroes a victory if done well while also lowering the ensemble's numbers not to mention that if the girls start picking off the council of evil that gives the remaining villains a reason to seek the heroes defeat other than just one of them's got silver eyes I guess and really the final element to make any of these options work stop introducing more superfluous characters we don't need a cartoon villain to fend off the girls when we could have had watts be the one trying to stop them we don't need Leo [ __ ] around Haven if he's gonna do nothing important throughout its minimal screen time we don't need a quirky old woman to join the cast when ruby can learn about her eyes from the ancient professor and the uncle who was on the same team as her mom who also had silver eyes the ruby crew need to stop introducing new people to the story when they could be utilizing the hoard of them already in the lineup here's a minor example of how it could be beneficial to bring back pre-established characters over making up new ones Dee and Dudley these two are dumb and offered nothing interesting or important to the cast but a commenter named Douglas Rosa for the solution to that why not replace them with carton in one of his teammates suddenly without changing anything about these two nobodies they matter and the audience cares about them then trying to shake down the heroes for extra cash is a fun look at how their shitty attitudes carried over from their time at beacon it would offer John and his team a chance to confront his old bullies D dying made no impact on the audience but if it had been Cardin suddenly that matters a guy we all knew got off by a grim how would that affect the heroes who hated him previously the onslaught of new characters means none of them matter to us unless the fans latch on to one with a cute design utilizing the established cast puts more weight on the ensemble while also allowing the main protagonists more opportunities for growth or reflection this show could really benefit by trimming down the crew when allowing them to be more than a couple of sentences before disappearing it would offer more time to see our heroes mature it would unclutter the amount of people we need to focus on and it would allow the writers to produce tighter more thought-out scripts without a shitload of kids to keep track of the writers will be able to delve deeper into motivation characterization in story progression without being bogged down by having to keep everyone included well I do like most of the characters I think it's time to say goodbye to all the ones we don't need in the story anymore hey friendly reminder that we have a patreon now if you like what we do here and want to support us we'd really appreciate it if you don't have money to spare but still want to help out simply liking and sharing this video does a lot for us too thank you

Channel: Twiins iink

Views: 101,614

Rating: 4.8938055 out of 5

Keywords: rwby, ruby rose, ruby, rose, weiss schnee, weiss, schnee, blake belladonna, blake, belladonna, yang xiaolong, yang, xiaolong, discussion, quantity, quality, too many, characters, problem, solution, anime, rt, roosterteeth, rooster teeth, twiins iink, twiins, iink, twiinsiink

Id: sFMA9lHtkyM

Length: 14min 52sec (892 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 12 2019

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[u/ArchangelReaper]

RWBYs biggest sin has always been its overambitiousness and focus on adding more and more, budget and time and scale and scope be damned. It creates a shallow ocean of water. Too many characters, too many magic systems, too many mcgufffins, etc. The CRWBY simply doesn't have the time or money to do everything they want to do, and their solution to fan demands and criticism is to further bloat the rotting corpse and add more and more and more and more and neglect what already existed. Just look at the mess that gave us Roman in V1 - Fox bros were originally meant to be the first villains, then Roman was made as a one off... despite Adam already existing. Then in later volumes more and more characters are stuffed in at the cost of neglecting already existing ones, while the new setting and characters are never developed well or fleshed out beyond surface level, and then immediately get forgotten, all while the mains stick around with their thumbs up their butts until the plot rolls around (even with Oz out, the cast still has no agency or activeness). Almost every volume has the cast stuck somewhere doing jackshit with the exception of Blake in V1-3, except even then that got ruined by V4s backstory for her and what they did to Adam, and more and more characters just get pounded in.

Jaune wasn't well received? Blame the fans and just make him into Oscar. People not happy with Adam? Split him into Vernal and Ilia and throw in Sienna, quality and precious screentime be damned. People want Ruby to learn about her silver eyes? Throw in Maria even though Qrow and Oz and Summer already exist. A morally gray group in Atlas? You get Robyn Bitch and her Bitch Posse even though the WF already exist. People want more about Blake? Give her a Menagerie background that doesn't fit, when it's more apt for Sun. People want Neo back (or Adam?)? Shove her in. You want to focus on revenge? Nah! Ren gets the revenge crap and not Yang.

A big cast is not the problem, but it's how you use it...and it depends based on the medium. MHA is a manga first, and uses a large cast to it's advantage by knowing when and where to focus on them while NOT forgetting who the mains are (Izuku, Bakugou, Todoroki, AM, Endeavor, and Shigaraki), and making sure that a hierachy of characters based on focus exists. Somebody is going to be the extra. For example.

RWBY wants EIGHT main characters from the get go all at once, along with Oz and with focus for Salem and Cinder, but ends up fucking it up because it has simply too many characters in it's cast and not enough time nor the will to simply cut down. Ren and Nora MEAN NOTHING. Miles is under the impression that because the show has an ensemble cast, it doesn't require a "main character" which just isn't fucking true. (There's an old inverse or Newsweek interview with M&K talking about this). The Avengers are the main characters of the MCU but Tony is ultimately the main fucking character. Worm, Sailor Moon, Power Rangers, Yu-Gi-Oh, MGS, basically anything with an ensemble cast proves Miles wrong.

Avatar had a large cast yet at best, had SEVEN mains to focus on, and that was it - and with the exception of Toph (who was still fine), everyone else was done amazingly well, from the smallest extras to the secondary leads.

FMA has a large cast and yet they are utilized well to the point almost every single named living character contributes to the final battle.

RWBY has more named characters at this point than Dragon Ball ever had in it's original run. Think about that.

[u/Spoderman77]

Pretty old video, and I'm pretty sure has been posted here before.

But we should keep talking about this until the writers get it through their heads that their show has a huge problem with the bloated cast.

Introducing the Ace Ops was one of the stupidest things they have ever done.

[u/KuuLightwing]

It's an old video, but I mean, it's hard to argue with her here. A lot of this I have been saying or thinking for some time before. Though, she does exaggerate a bit when she says that main cast doesn't change, I'd say some of the main cast does change (referring to recent Weiss discussion, for example), but I also can't say they changed for the better over the course of the story.