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angel.nikelle
10 hours
The 'Ironwood was ruined' crowd clearly forget that:
1) Atlas is a stratocracy. Its citizens and ESPECIALLY the academy students are indoctrinated into nationalism.
2) Prior to who he is now, Ironwood was born and raised into that life.
3) He has clear PTSD and paranoia.
4) Mettle works against him just as bad as Misfortune does with Qrow because of his issues.
So what did they expect a nationalist with supreme authority, PTSD, Mettle, and ACTUAL means to do something about the threat to do? Thing is, he's not entirely right, but he's not WRONG either. He's being pushed to extremes, so he's pushing back with just as much extremity.
Pat
12 hours
The thing with Ironwood is yes, his semblance 'Mettle' is locking him into this chain of events, but also Oz isn't there to be his logic anymore. Oz was the only one to speak to Ironwood in a way that he understood, to make him think twice about things. Glynda and Qrow had obvious distaste for James, and Winter is his subordinate. Oz was the only person ABOVE him on the pecking order. And after Oz went away, James FLOUDNERED. He panicked, and essentially sealed himself into an echo chamber where there wasn't ANYONE who would question his authority. Salem knew this, and Cinder exploited this (which is how she got to Fria in the first place). James was always a tin SOLDIER, but without orders nor pushback, he fell into his extremist ways like any flawed MAN.
ChaosDragon
17 hours
Ironwood is meant to be a cold and unkind person.
Several characters in the show are representing very literal interpretations of characters from the wizard of oz with their flaws, but they are not given the same end where it is revealed they always had what they lacked, and instead genuinely lack those traits.
Ozpin is the wizard, the ultimate deceiver. He is currently working toward redeeming himself, but still has a long way to go.
Leo was the lion, he lacks courage and is driven to betray his friends out of fear. He died before ever getting a chance to redeem himself.
Qrow is the scarecrow, he lacks brains and rather than think for himself he chose to follow Oz and then gave up when Oz's deception was revealed. After he quits drinking he starts to turn around and begins to redeem himself.
Ironwood is the tinman, he lacks a heart. He does anything he sees as necessary to accomplish his goals and will eliminate anybody who gets in his way. He is shown to be uncaring in the oursuit of those goals, he feels the ends justify the means. He likely will not be redeemed.
There are others like Glynda and Ruby but they arent as relevant to the discussion about Ironwood.
Cyrinil
21 hours
I mean, you can be as mad at Ironwood as you like but he is the only one trying to keep the relics out of Salems hands at all costs. Does anyone else have a plan? What? Just fight Salem right here and win?
Mantle is primarily at risk because Atlas and the relics are still here.
1 replies
Stridency
18 hours
lolno. salem is a spiteful bitch, and so are grimm. mantle would be fucked
1 replies
Cyrinil
17 hours
Mantle would be fucked because of wild grimm and a near total lack of defence support, heating and probably power. Salem hasn't been shown to go out of her way to kill people who aren't in the way if she doesn't have to. Except maybe Lionheart I guess, but he could have been an information liability since he met Watts. Even currently, the grimm river and the whale just ignored Mantle entirely. Her POV song "Divide" even implies that she thinks that all the death is on Oz for putting them between her and the relics and she wouldn't have to kill people if he just hands the relics over.
I'd wager she'd see sticking around to massacre Mantle for no benefit as a waste of her time. She'd need to get back on adjusting her gameplan for a second time. If it'll take her a bit to amass a way to catch Atlas, she'd probably need to start her plans for Vacuo before Atlas can regroup.
1 replies
TEG
15 hours
Not to forget, she knows she doesn't have to kill everyone because once she untes the relics the gods will do it for her.
1 replies
SaviorOfNirn
3 hours
just because she doesn't have to kill everyone doesn't mean she won't
Paul
21 hours
This is where the Ironwood defenders officially switched from "everything Ironwood has done is justified actually" to "the show is writing Ironwood wrong". Meanwhile, us Ironwood appreciators acknowledge that he has always been a fascist.
1 replies
Nick
21 hours
I still defend ironwood, only made the right decision
Havoc
23 hours
I can understand the plan to use the staff to have Atlas escape Salem. Excluding mantle is harsh and too far, though I can understand his worry about Salem crew sneaking in when evacuating them. Everything else is way too far. Ironwood is giving in to his fears and using his semblance to lock into the downward spiral.
James
1 day
A lot of people here seem to be blaming Ironwood's semblance. Which isn't really accurate. He controls when to use his semblance. He can still choose what to focus it on. His semblance doesn't control his life. He controls his semblance. Ironwood is still 100% accountable for his actions. Ironwood has always saw himself as the hero. Even way back in V2/3. This is his ego thinking his idea's are the only idea's that will work.
2 replies
FryLord
23 hours
The thing too is that his semblance was very much and after thought they added after the volume so either way, it's not because of his semblance because 1) they werent thinking that way when they wrote it 2) as you said, it's now like Qrow's and we've seen him contemplating and very intentionally doing everything
Connor
1 day
His semblance is passive like Qrow's and, Like Qrow, his semblance has moments where it flares up and moments where it's reduced, but it's always switched on. If he hadn't been born with his specific semblance, James would have grown to be a completely different person.
1 replies
James
1 day
And it's stated to be passive where? Does the show even mention his semblance? No, it doesn't. For every single semblance that can't be seen it has been explained by the characters (if they are important to the story.) Qrow explains his semblance, Clover explains his semblance, Emerald explained her semblance in case people were still confused about it. Ironwood never mentions his semblance. Ozpin never mentions it either, and he would definitely know about it. If Ironwoods semblance acted the way you say then he would have ignored Oz in V2 and would have bombed Mt. Glenn. Because his semblance apparently controls him in this head canon. People are very quick to find any reason to excuse Ironwood because they didn't like his character direction. And his semblance, which was only said in a Q and A session is the first place they point to, when it has never had an impact on his character in the story.
3 replies
zackscroggins
23 hours
It's not a headcanon, it's confirmed by the writers. Ironwood has a passive semblance that makes him stubborn. It's a play on the fact that he's based on the Tinman, he's heartless. Also, no, he wouldn't have bombed Mountain Glenn, because he didn't know anything was happening there, why would he bomb a place, that as far as he knows, is just a failed outpost? There's also the fact that, while he does not control his semblance, it's not an all or nothing. It doesn't just turn on and that's that, it builds, and high stress situations (like his kingdom being under siege) cause it to build up faster. Your mistake is treating RWBY like a normal TV show, it doesn't work that way, internet based content requires some engagement with the source. In a normal TV show, yeah, it would pretty much need to be said IN the show or some other canon media (like the books) but because of the structure or Rooster Teeth and how RWBY was developed and distributed, you need to include context from outside of canon. The writers confirmed it during a panel at RTX 2020 and said they intended to address it in the show but there was never a point in volume 7 or 8 where they felt it was important enough to break up the flow for exposition.
As for people trying to excuse Ironwood's behavior, no, no one is doing that. They are explaining how his semblance works, because what it does is cause him to hyper-focus on his decisions and tune out any detractors. That's it. It makes him stubborn and unwilling to listen to reason.
1 replies
James
21 hours
He was fully ready to send in his forces to raze Mt. Glenn until Ozpin stopped him. Do you have a link to where his semblance is described as passive and that it's not an all or nothing situation? One that says what the writers said verbatim vs someone just paraphrasing? Because what your describing is just his stubborn personality with PTSD. Did you need to understand parts of the show outside of the show? I didn't. A lot of people didn't. RWBY's writing isn't bad to where that needs to happen. Just watching the show is enough to know why characters are acting like they do and where the plot is going. As for people trying to excuse Ironwood's behavior, why is that every time Ironwood makes a rash decision the comments are full of people stating what his semblance is like a mantra? Like they are trying to point out that 'it's not his fault it's this semblance the writers gave him.' This has been a thing since V7. Somebody commented on this batch that It's not Ironwood's ego that did this, it's his semblance.
Icy
23 hours
it was stated by writers that it was part of it and it can't turn off
1 replies
James
23 hours
And was it stated in the show? No. So if a casual person doesn't hunt down for this Q and A session then they won't know. If this semblance actually had a giant effect on Ironwood then it would have been stated in the show. Just like all the other ones that can invisibly affect people. If that question was never asked then they never would have said what his semblance was, that shows how little it affects his character. Ironwood is 100% responsible for his actions. Not his semblance. The stans can just get over it.
Justin
1 day
I don't know if his semblance is passive or not, but either way it has had an effect on his character and decisions. I am inclined to say it is not a passive one, but either way it doesn't make choices for him but increases his determination for those choices. He made 'bad' choices and doubled down on them. Which had a major impact on his character in the story, because it was harder for him to listen to others after that.
Zen
1 day
Its not ego its his semblance. It literally forces him to single mindedly pursue a goal
1 replies
FryLord
23 hours
It's not automatic, it doesn't force him to do anything. He controls his actions and semblance
Raptor
1 day
I LOVE Watt’s Monologue. When he’s talking, it feels (to me at least) like him making a statement about how she’s written, mainly her sense of entitlement. When he talks, I hear “You can’t just be tragic you have to be redeemable.” They gave her a classic tragic backstory, but gave her none of the redeeming qualities a character like that would need to have in order for the audience to route for them.But I think the writers know that, and are stating that despite having suffered when innocent does not entitle her to whatever she wants. And I may be one of the few people who is okay with having Cinder be like that. I think a villain having some level of depth to them but still choosing to be evil is something we don’t see very often, especially nowadays when so many antagonists are either 1 dimensional evil or have some excuse to be the way they are, which even Salem got. Long story short, I don’t like Cinder, but I’m kinda okay with that.
1 replies
Stars
19 hours
I
1 replies
Stars
18 hours
I think you're right on the money. We emphasize with how she got the way she is, but that doesn't mean we have to sympathize with her actions. We understand how she got there but that doesn't make it justified. She represents the cycle of abuse: awful things happened to her and her response was to do awful things to other people. She wants to get stronger (the easy way) simply to lash out at other people, and to make sure nobody can do it to her again. It sucks but that's really how that cycle goes a lot of the time. Some people are just broken beyond repair and honestly at this point I think that's genuinely more interesting than having every single villain be potentially redeemable/justified.
FryLord
1 day
Witch is probably one of my favorite episodes because Hazel pops off!
Nicholas
1 day
Ironwood semblance is to blame it makes him double down on his decisions he becomes a tin man and will not waver
John
1 day
Ironwood semblance is never said but it is Ironwood's Semblance, Mettle, strengthened his resolve which allowed him to carry through with his decisions, helping James hyper-focus on his choices and suppress any feelings of doubt he had beforehand.
countershock3032986
1 day
Forgot it was thursday again but i have time before work today
The 'Ironwood was ruined' crowd clearly forget that:
1) Atlas is a stratocracy. Its citizens and ESPECIALLY the academy students are indoctrinated into nationalism.
2) Prior to who he is now, Ironwood was born and raised into that life.
3) He has clear PTSD and paranoia.
4) Mettle works against him just as bad as Misfortune does with Qrow because of his issues.
So what did they expect a nationalist with supreme authority, PTSD, Mettle, and ACTUAL means to do something about the threat to do? Thing is, he's not entirely right, but he's not WRONG either. He's being pushed to extremes, so he's pushing back with just as much extremity.
The thing with Ironwood is yes, his semblance 'Mettle' is locking him into this chain of events, but also Oz isn't there to be his logic anymore. Oz was the only one to speak to Ironwood in a way that he understood, to make him think twice about things. Glynda and Qrow had obvious distaste for James, and Winter is his subordinate. Oz was the only person ABOVE him on the pecking order. And after Oz went away, James FLOUDNERED. He panicked, and essentially sealed himself into an echo chamber where there wasn't ANYONE who would question his authority. Salem knew this, and Cinder exploited this (which is how she got to Fria in the first place). James was always a tin SOLDIER, but without orders nor pushback, he fell into his extremist ways like any flawed MAN.
Ironwood is meant to be a cold and unkind person.
Several characters in the show are representing very literal interpretations of characters from the wizard of oz with their flaws, but they are not given the same end where it is revealed they always had what they lacked, and instead genuinely lack those traits.
Ozpin is the wizard, the ultimate deceiver. He is currently working toward redeeming himself, but still has a long way to go.
Leo was the lion, he lacks courage and is driven to betray his friends out of fear. He died before ever getting a chance to redeem himself.
Qrow is the scarecrow, he lacks brains and rather than think for himself he chose to follow Oz and then gave up when Oz's deception was revealed. After he quits drinking he starts to turn around and begins to redeem himself.
Ironwood is the tinman, he lacks a heart. He does anything he sees as necessary to accomplish his goals and will eliminate anybody who gets in his way. He is shown to be uncaring in the oursuit of those goals, he feels the ends justify the means. He likely will not be redeemed.
There are others like Glynda and Ruby but they arent as relevant to the discussion about Ironwood.
I mean, you can be as mad at Ironwood as you like but he is the only one trying to keep the relics out of Salems hands at all costs. Does anyone else have a plan? What? Just fight Salem right here and win?
Mantle is primarily at risk because Atlas and the relics are still here.
lolno. salem is a spiteful bitch, and so are grimm. mantle would be fucked
Mantle would be fucked because of wild grimm and a near total lack of defence support, heating and probably power. Salem hasn't been shown to go out of her way to kill people who aren't in the way if she doesn't have to. Except maybe Lionheart I guess, but he could have been an information liability since he met Watts. Even currently, the grimm river and the whale just ignored Mantle entirely. Her POV song "Divide" even implies that she thinks that all the death is on Oz for putting them between her and the relics and she wouldn't have to kill people if he just hands the relics over.
I'd wager she'd see sticking around to massacre Mantle for no benefit as a waste of her time. She'd need to get back on adjusting her gameplan for a second time. If it'll take her a bit to amass a way to catch Atlas, she'd probably need to start her plans for Vacuo before Atlas can regroup.
Not to forget, she knows she doesn't have to kill everyone because once she untes the relics the gods will do it for her.
just because she doesn't have to kill everyone doesn't mean she won't
This is where the Ironwood defenders officially switched from "everything Ironwood has done is justified actually" to "the show is writing Ironwood wrong". Meanwhile, us Ironwood appreciators acknowledge that he has always been a fascist.
I still defend ironwood, only made the right decision
I can understand the plan to use the staff to have Atlas escape Salem. Excluding mantle is harsh and too far, though I can understand his worry about Salem crew sneaking in when evacuating them. Everything else is way too far. Ironwood is giving in to his fears and using his semblance to lock into the downward spiral.
A lot of people here seem to be blaming Ironwood's semblance. Which isn't really accurate. He controls when to use his semblance. He can still choose what to focus it on. His semblance doesn't control his life. He controls his semblance. Ironwood is still 100% accountable for his actions. Ironwood has always saw himself as the hero. Even way back in V2/3. This is his ego thinking his idea's are the only idea's that will work.
The thing too is that his semblance was very much and after thought they added after the volume so either way, it's not because of his semblance because 1) they werent thinking that way when they wrote it 2) as you said, it's now like Qrow's and we've seen him contemplating and very intentionally doing everything
His semblance is passive like Qrow's and, Like Qrow, his semblance has moments where it flares up and moments where it's reduced, but it's always switched on. If he hadn't been born with his specific semblance, James would have grown to be a completely different person.
And it's stated to be passive where? Does the show even mention his semblance? No, it doesn't. For every single semblance that can't be seen it has been explained by the characters (if they are important to the story.) Qrow explains his semblance, Clover explains his semblance, Emerald explained her semblance in case people were still confused about it. Ironwood never mentions his semblance. Ozpin never mentions it either, and he would definitely know about it. If Ironwoods semblance acted the way you say then he would have ignored Oz in V2 and would have bombed Mt. Glenn. Because his semblance apparently controls him in this head canon. People are very quick to find any reason to excuse Ironwood because they didn't like his character direction. And his semblance, which was only said in a Q and A session is the first place they point to, when it has never had an impact on his character in the story.
It's not a headcanon, it's confirmed by the writers. Ironwood has a passive semblance that makes him stubborn. It's a play on the fact that he's based on the Tinman, he's heartless. Also, no, he wouldn't have bombed Mountain Glenn, because he didn't know anything was happening there, why would he bomb a place, that as far as he knows, is just a failed outpost? There's also the fact that, while he does not control his semblance, it's not an all or nothing. It doesn't just turn on and that's that, it builds, and high stress situations (like his kingdom being under siege) cause it to build up faster. Your mistake is treating RWBY like a normal TV show, it doesn't work that way, internet based content requires some engagement with the source. In a normal TV show, yeah, it would pretty much need to be said IN the show or some other canon media (like the books) but because of the structure or Rooster Teeth and how RWBY was developed and distributed, you need to include context from outside of canon. The writers confirmed it during a panel at RTX 2020 and said they intended to address it in the show but there was never a point in volume 7 or 8 where they felt it was important enough to break up the flow for exposition.
As for people trying to excuse Ironwood's behavior, no, no one is doing that. They are explaining how his semblance works, because what it does is cause him to hyper-focus on his decisions and tune out any detractors. That's it. It makes him stubborn and unwilling to listen to reason.
He was fully ready to send in his forces to raze Mt. Glenn until Ozpin stopped him. Do you have a link to where his semblance is described as passive and that it's not an all or nothing situation? One that says what the writers said verbatim vs someone just paraphrasing? Because what your describing is just his stubborn personality with PTSD. Did you need to understand parts of the show outside of the show? I didn't. A lot of people didn't. RWBY's writing isn't bad to where that needs to happen. Just watching the show is enough to know why characters are acting like they do and where the plot is going. As for people trying to excuse Ironwood's behavior, why is that every time Ironwood makes a rash decision the comments are full of people stating what his semblance is like a mantra? Like they are trying to point out that 'it's not his fault it's this semblance the writers gave him.' This has been a thing since V7. Somebody commented on this batch that It's not Ironwood's ego that did this, it's his semblance.
it was stated by writers that it was part of it and it can't turn off
And was it stated in the show? No. So if a casual person doesn't hunt down for this Q and A session then they won't know. If this semblance actually had a giant effect on Ironwood then it would have been stated in the show. Just like all the other ones that can invisibly affect people. If that question was never asked then they never would have said what his semblance was, that shows how little it affects his character. Ironwood is 100% responsible for his actions. Not his semblance. The stans can just get over it.
I don't know if his semblance is passive or not, but either way it has had an effect on his character and decisions. I am inclined to say it is not a passive one, but either way it doesn't make choices for him but increases his determination for those choices. He made 'bad' choices and doubled down on them. Which had a major impact on his character in the story, because it was harder for him to listen to others after that.
Its not ego its his semblance. It literally forces him to single mindedly pursue a goal
It's not automatic, it doesn't force him to do anything. He controls his actions and semblance
I LOVE Watt’s Monologue. When he’s talking, it feels (to me at least) like him making a statement about how she’s written, mainly her sense of entitlement. When he talks, I hear “You can’t just be tragic you have to be redeemable.” They gave her a classic tragic backstory, but gave her none of the redeeming qualities a character like that would need to have in order for the audience to route for them.But I think the writers know that, and are stating that despite having suffered when innocent does not entitle her to whatever she wants. And I may be one of the few people who is okay with having Cinder be like that. I think a villain having some level of depth to them but still choosing to be evil is something we don’t see very often, especially nowadays when so many antagonists are either 1 dimensional evil or have some excuse to be the way they are, which even Salem got. Long story short, I don’t like Cinder, but I’m kinda okay with that.
I
I think you're right on the money. We emphasize with how she got the way she is, but that doesn't mean we have to sympathize with her actions. We understand how she got there but that doesn't make it justified. She represents the cycle of abuse: awful things happened to her and her response was to do awful things to other people. She wants to get stronger (the easy way) simply to lash out at other people, and to make sure nobody can do it to her again. It sucks but that's really how that cycle goes a lot of the time. Some people are just broken beyond repair and honestly at this point I think that's genuinely more interesting than having every single villain be potentially redeemable/justified.
Witch is probably one of my favorite episodes because Hazel pops off!
Ironwood semblance is to blame it makes him double down on his decisions he becomes a tin man and will not waver
Ironwood semblance is never said but it is Ironwood's Semblance, Mettle, strengthened his resolve which allowed him to carry through with his decisions, helping James hyper-focus on his choices and suppress any feelings of doubt he had beforehand.
Forgot it was thursday again but i have time before work today