RWBY Revisited: Aura, Semblances, and Magic

salutations all and welcome to the first ruby revisited where i'll examine an aspect of ruby that may not have reached its full potential i'd like to start off by saying that i thoroughly enjoy this show and my analysis of these aspects comes from a place of appreciation not hate there are aspects of this series that have fallen short however i aim to take a deep dive into these issues and see how they could have been handled differently and what i would do if i were in charge to help alleviate them please note that spoilers for all seasons will follow so if you aren't up to date now is your chance to back out also note that content directly featured in the show will be weighted more heavily than that which is clarified or revealed in supplementary material for our first installment i'll be taking a look at a fundamental aspect of the show aura semblances and magic while the names and roles of each of these are distinct they all fall under the principle of a magic system in terms of writing magic systems that are featured in fantasy and sometimes sci-fi fall into two categories soft magic systems and hard magic systems soft magic systems are defined as being vague where the rules of the magic aren't made clear to the audience harry potter is an example of this be it in the books or films we're never given many rules on how the magic works do people create spells to do things or are they pre-existing things that are discovered incredible things are possible but the limits of the magic are never explained great care must be handled with soft magic systems as because of their ambiguous nature the audience could be left wondering why problems were not simply solved with magic hard magic systems are the opposite the system has clearly defined rules and limits and it is generally a plot point these limitations must be worked around an example of this would be an avatar the last airbender bending involves manipulating one of the four elements and it is a genetic trait not something that can be learned by anyone an individual is also limited to being able to bend only one element with the only exception to that being the avatar one can improve their bending abilities with training thus allowing them to produce more impressive feats now hard and soft magic systems are not necessarily a binary value the magic or equivalent can be very well understood in some areas while also being vague in others ruby's implementation of aura semblances and magic fall under this category let's begin with discussing aura aura is described as a sort of energy that is connected to a being soul it's produced by all living things including animals the only things stated to not produce aura are grim one can train themselves to activate their aura or someone else can activate it for them as shown when pira does so for jean once activated it can protect the individual from harm and even grant that person a unique semblance its strength is limited however sufficient damage can break the shield this does lead to a few questions however can aura protect someone from something such as being poisoned how does it determine what to protect a user from as in would chewing food cause the shield to take damage force would be applied to the user's teeth after all what if one were to strike an opponent with their body would doing so damage the attacker's aura as forces applied to the one doing the striking hazel is also shown to be able to willingly insert dust crystals into his arms without his aura stopping them these questions must be considered in any universe where such shields are present be they magical or technological we know that it can protect individuals from extreme temperatures for a time as yang has stated that the cold of atlas's wilds won't harm them until their aura is depleted an individual can also be healed by their aura but that is tied to the strength of their aura and how much they have remaining during its initial explanation we also see ren projecting it from his hands to prevent a king taijitu from biting him but it has not been seen in such a capacity since it also seems to be able to increase the user's awareness of their surroundings letting them know if they are being watched or if someone is approaching the major problems with aura however is its strength being communicated to the viewer and its consistency first let us examine the issue of its consistency in earlier seasons characters were able to absorb immense amounts of damage without much effort as their aura shielded them from it in one episode yang is witnessed to be struck and blown through the ceiling taking a full 96 seconds to land again terminal velocity occurs in roughly 12 seconds meaning that she was protected from the initial hit the force required to break through the roof and over a minute of falling conversely in volume 8 yang's aura breaks in a single hit from neo this attack had much less force behind it and yang's aura had not taken any significant damage for it to have been weakened not only did it break but she was rendered barely conscious from it as well some have argued that yang was fatigued at the time weakening her aura but if so that was not clearly communicated in the show and neither was it confirmed ruby's aura also breaks from a much smaller fall in the same volume while yang managed to achieve terminal velocity several times over ruby only fell for three seconds appearing to be dropped from a roughly three-story height while aura strength varies from person to person every member of the main cast has been shown to have survived falls from a much greater height and velocity this inconsistency is unfortunate it makes it seem as though a character's aura is only as strong as the plot needs it to be in that given moment rather than how strong it should be based upon that character's unique combat style training and resilience we're currently waiting for volume 9 at the time of this recording so nothing can be done about the volumes of the past without remaking them entirely but moving forward rooster teeth's solution to this discrepancy would be to stick to a level of strength for each character and keep it to those parameters aura shields seem to have gotten weaker as the volumes have gone on so i can only assume that earlier seasons were to be taken as exaggerations or simple oversights the second problem is conveying the strength of a character's aura to the viewers as the budget for the show increased and rooster teeth had better programs to render ruby in the characters gained a sort of flickering energy effect when they took damage its color varied per individual and it gave a wispy effect when it was broken this was a massive improvement as now it was clear when a character suffered a significant blow and conveyed when their shield was broken the only problem here however is that we don't know how much strength remains in a character's aura shield after they've been hit a similar visual effect occurs in the halo games when fighting an enemy with an energy shield its flickering effect will become stronger and brighter until it breaks entirely this lets the player know at a glance how much damage they're doing something that quickly makes the shield's glow increase is an instant identifier that they are doing more damage than another weapon that causes it to do so at a slower rate ruby could adopt a similar setup if a character has plenty of aura remaining the flicker effect may appear much less intensely as opposed to when they only have a small amount remaining or it can be done inversely having it glow brightly to indicate the shield is still strong while only glowing dully when it's almost depleted either way would be sufficient next let's talk about semblances characters are able to achieve a semblance after they've unlocked their aura and it provides them with a power that is unique to them while there are semblances that are similar to each other every one is supposed to be unique they range from combat-related powers to utility-based abilities to talents that support others many of these semblances are extremely creative and well implemented but there are a few missteps for example weiss's semblance is all over the place for starters it's a hereditary semblance rather than one unique to an individual the show establishes that this isn't unheard of only that it's rare while this isn't an issue on its own what's more confusing is the matter of what exactly it is officially her semblance is glyphs most of the time she is able to project a glyph onto a surface or even in mid-air that exerts a push or a pull force however this is only scratching the surface there seems to be no shortage of what these glyphs can do and as such her powers seem to be all over the place capable of much more than other characters every character that is not of her bloodline has a semblance that does one specific thing and that must be played around ruby's semblance only grants her increased speed and with that limited flight yang only absorbs damage and becomes stronger blake only projects illusions of herself this may partially be explained by dust augmenting her semblance with its energy as seen when blake infuses her shadow duplicates with it but these effects are far greater than anything any other character can produce a shadow clone of blake's is only augmented with an element schnee glyphs have much more wide reaching effects twice and the other schnees can exert push or pull forces summon copies of enemies they've slain skate through the air and even alter the flow of time itself for the life of me i can't find a through line of her glyphs if it were only glyphs doing various things that would be understandable but the summoning aspect is drastically out of place it essentially gives her two semblances for the price of one the only thing i can think of at present to allow this semblance to make more sense would be if rooster teeth had the schnee semblance expanded upon in lore perhaps it's connected to magic somehow or maybe hereditary semblances can evolve beyond what an individuals can achieve in one lifetime with that being said weiss does not often use abilities that should be game enders during her fights her time dilation glyph should allow her or another member of her team to shred any opponent as they will be moving faster than that opponent can perceive ruby's semblance should have similar effects super speed is a tricky power to handle in fiction as even a mediocre or poor combatant should still be able to best someone who far outclasses them with it this is because if you can attack faster than your opponent can respond even the best fighter would be helpless as to why weiss doesn't use that particular ability more often i can only assume that it requires dust that isn't readily available else it could be abused constantly ruby's semblance is not so easy to dismiss now i can only assume that it's her non-aggressive nature but if she were to apply her incredible speed into a flurry of strikes no opponent could stand up to her but there are also semblances that seem to be passive effects that are always on regardless of that person's intent crow's semblance is one such case as it causes bad luck around him at random intervals this bad luck can be towards himself an opponent or a teammate or bystander now luck is a difficult power to handle appropriately as if handled poorly it can feel like the author's hand is moving pieces where the plot needs them to be in an inorganic fashion due to its unpredictable nature one must question every unfortunate outcome while crow is nearby be it minor or major does his semblance still function if his aura is depleted we can't say logic would dictate that surely it shouldn't as semblances need aura to function but if his semblance is a passive effect that seems to be active to some degree at all times then shouldn't that leave him constantly depleted of aura a character by the name of clover is introduced later and his semblance is the exact inverse of crows but it suffers from the same issues another semblance that's caused numerous arguments amongst viewers is ironwood's semblance his semblance allows him to quote strengthen his resolve to carry through with decisions helping him hyper focus end quote the first problem is that this is never once mentioned in the show his semblance was only revealed at rtx 2020 it's also unknown as to if he has ever used it during the events of the show and if he has we can't say when considering ironwood's drastic course of action in seasons seven and eight he may very well have been under its effects description is also vague is it a subtle increase to his ability to focus or does it override other lines of thinking to make him fixated on only one path if it's the latter then this is more of a hindrance than a semblance impairing his ability to think clearly finally let's discuss magic magic is the aspect of these three related topics that we know the least about and thus raises the most questions the characters in the show are able to differentiate between magic and semblances on site but for we the audience the distinction is not so clear when crow was first shown to be able to transform into a bird i assumed that that was his semblance later though the characters are flummoxed by this ability how is this so different from ruby's ability to move quickly enough to disperse her own molecules what makes it more special than fiona's semblance to store entire vehicles and pocket dimensions the main cast are astonished by crow's ability but it's never made clear how this is different from semblances were later shown that humanity all once had the ability to use magic but they were annihilated by the gods of light and dark after an undefined amount of time humans and the faunus now exist but they can't use it leaving salem and asma as the only ones with access to magic now salem uses it to fly augment grim and use various offensive abilities osma is different however while nothing seems to diminish salem's power osma has stated that he has less power than he once did due to the creation of the maidens and giving crow and raven the ability to transform into birds i still have to question how this weakened him however salem has been alive for thousands of years at least and her magic hasn't been affected by how much she uses it would osma's strength return if the bronwyn twins were to die or the maiden cease to exist without understanding how the magic works we can only speculate now the maidens are the aspect of magic that we know the most about there are four of them one for each season they can manipulate the elements though there doesn't seem to be any distinction between them in terms of their powers they are also the only ones capable of unlocking a vault in each kingdom one corresponding to each vault it is a power that can only be granted to women and when one dies its power will pass on to the woman that the current holder was thinking about or to a random woman if she was thinking about a man the problems with the magic in ruby are much the same as any fictional universe with a soft magic system we understand some of how it works but because we don't have knowledge of what restricts it we can't truly anticipate how it can be used oscar uses osmos cane to create a massive explosion but there was no indication that it was capable of that level of destruction before maidens seem to be able to instantly understand how to utilize their newfound powers with cinder penny and winter almost immediately understanding that they can fly and unleash elemental attacks are the maidens powers tied to their aura and thus inaccessible if their aura is depleted what are the limits of the maiden powers if they originally came from osma who was a man why are they restricted to women was that something that he intentionally did or was it accidental silver eyes are also enigmatic they possess the ability to turn grim to stone but we know precious little else about them they may be a genetic trait as ruby and her mother both share them but this is unconfirmed its strength is also undetermined as the wyvern in volume 3 was not killed by it merely turned to stone and incapacitated the leviathan in volume 6 though was only encased in stone and was able to break free we don't know for certain if this is due to the energy being weaker or if the leviathan is stronger or more resistant to it than the wyvern the silver eyes seem to be a threat to salem or at the very least a hindrance to her goals as she has had many of them killed over the years as was almost the fate of maria this leads many to speculate that the silver eyes will be instrumental in salem's downfall but again all we can do is speculate as salem is only partially grim lastly the relics still have some mystery about them we know next to nothing of the relic of destruction at present so it will be omitted from this discussion however the relic of creation is monstrously powerful we know that the spirit inside ambrosius can create almost anything provided he has a frame of reference and materials this can be used as an instant win button to expose the vault of vacuo all salem need do would be to tell ambrosius that she wants to recreate vacuo high in the air using the current materials of vacuo the resulting devastation would kill everyone there and leave her with no opposition between herself and the vault the relic of knowledge was also squandered by ozma his question to jinn was how do i destroy salem this has two qualifiers the first being i that limits any response to what he would be able of doing on his own seeing as salem was cursed into immortality he has no such capacity the second qualifier was destroy this eliminates any chance of purging her of the grim that infects her or convincing her of any other path at no point in his many lifetimes did osma consider rephrasing his question time is also shown to stand still when a relic is being used if that's the case why doesn't anyone simply summon the spirit inside to stop time then execute any nearby opponents cinder used the relic of creation while in the presence of characters that she wished dead but she did no such thing can they not take any action while time is paused it's never confirmed so it warrants questioning these issues can all be resolved with more information if we're better informed of how magic works and what makes it separate from semblances then most of these dilemmas will disappear this is why i always recommend that works that involve soft magic systems use it as a secondary element seldom seen so that cannot affect the plot in ways that the audience can't anticipate when magic or advanced technology has unclear rules or an undetermined level of power it can seem cheap when used to resolve a problem that the characters are facing as i said before i thoroughly enjoy ruby and i eagerly await volume 9 and it is this fondness of the show that prompts me to analyze it like this if the show was garbage then i wouldn't be invested enough to dig into it i'd like to thank those of you who have stuck around to hear my two cents and may all of you have a weapon in each hand

Channel: The Dual-Wielder

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Length: 19min 11sec (1151 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 16 2022