So I’m certain this will go over quite well with many here, but yes as the title suggests I’m here to talk about the different Weiss fights and why I personally enjoy them. I want to look at these fights from the perspective of Weiss’s character and what we as an audience have learned about her through these fights and how we’ve seen her grow, learn, and potentially not from them.
Before jumping straight into thoughts on the fight themselves I feel some added context could be helpful. So I tend to see what to me feels like a fairly common perception of, “Weiss should’ve had the best training out of the four girls of team RWBY before coming to Beacon, her family’s super rich how could she not.” Now this isn’t an inherently wrong view point to take or have. We don’t have a full grasp or picture of Weiss’s time before coming to Beacon so most view points and headcanons are going to be fair play here. If it’s not obvious though I don’t agree with this view point or perception.
My line of thought tends to go more along the following, Weiss was drilled in the basics; her form, her posture, her composure, and her technique. As far as her training goes I’d argue that Weiss was never exposed to a fight with real live Grimm(No, I’m not counting Winters summons) and she was never exposed to a fight where her life was truly on the line. Weiss is the heiress to one of(if not) the most powerful companies in all of Atlas maybe even all of Remnant, and the daughter to the man that owns and runs said company. I would highly doubt as a trainer you’d be going out of your way to teach her in a manner that would put her in any potential harm. To reference another show I’m fairly sure everyone loved and had no issues with what so ever, a Syrio Forel Weiss did not have in her life.
Finally I feel the assumption that Weiss had the best training out of the four girls “because money” also forgets Weiss’s relationship with Jaques, his want to control every aspect of her life, and have her be that perfect trophy to display. Why else let Weiss learn fencing, when performed well it’s a beautiful art and accentuates that Schnee elegance. Granted this was more than likely okay with Weiss also since it is a similar style to that of her sisters, but I’d guarantee you that daddy dearest would never have signed off on the idea of training to become a huntress if Weiss had taken up any other style or weapon. At this point I’m starting to veer off into more headcanon territory I feel, but I brought this up because my personal perception of Weiss’s training does form the basis for a lot of what I’m about to go over. So finally without further adieu let’s jump into the first Weiss fight we get from the show.
Weiss vs the Beowolves in the Emerald Forest during initiation:
So this fight ends fairly abruptly and we don’t get a lot from it, but we do get something I personally see as very important setup for Weiss going forward. Weiss starts that scene off with reminding herself of her form, her posture, to remember her training. Why? Well I feel this is Weiss’s first real introduction to Grimm. Her first real time meeting them up close and her first time being put in a fight where (even if she doesn’t entirely believe Ozpin when he says no one will help them) her life is to some degree on the line. From the other girls of team RWBY we don’t get anything like this.
Fighting in fights like this is akin to just switching gears for them, no need for reminders, just do. I feel this is the case for them because they’ve know and understand what it means to fight for survival, to be in a fight where your life is on the line. Blake was a revolutionary with the White Fang, living out in the wilderness, and fighting in fights that if you were caught more than likely meant death. (if you were lucky) Ruby and Yang are a bit harder to nail down, but based on their respective trailers fairly easy assumptions can be made I feel. It’d be doubtful that Jr. was the only criminal Yang had butted heads with before. As for Ruby even though many talk about how her trailer doesn’t quite line up with her character wise, we can still use it to at least assume that she’s had quite a bit of experience fighting Grimm before. All of this to say that this is Weiss’s first introduction to what a fight where her life depends on her winning feels like, and that this is something the other girls of team RWBY are already used to and have over Weiss, due to their respective differences in upbringing and training. After that this fight as I said ends quite abruptly with Ruby getting in the way. This to though I feel is important, because it shows us how both of these girls are used to fighting. Both of them are and can be quite self-absorbed(for lack of a better word) when it comes to fighting, because they’re so used to fighting alone. So this is a small look at just how far these two will have to go before they’ll be able to form a truly good and functioning team and partnership.
Weiss vs. the Boarbatusk:
Many I’ve noticed tend to point out that this win comes with the caveat of her having trouble and only just managing to win. Personally I feel that’s the wrong focus to take here, as far as this scene goes the fact Weiss had trouble isn’t important. It’s why she had trouble that should be the interesting take away here. What this fight shows us is that Weiss can be quite easily distracted and thrown out of that training of hers. It also shows us that Weiss in a similar fashion to Yang is prone to letting her emotions get the better of her in a fight, and in so doing somewhat changing up her fighting style to someone else’s we’re somewhat familiar with to reflect this change in disposition.
Which leads us nicely into Weiss’s fight with Banesaw:
Our first fight where Weiss has to fight with her life on the line. We start off with what looks like Weiss doing quite well. Banesaw’s no slouch it seems, but Weiss still seems to have the upper hand, until Banesaw grabs her and slams her down, cut away and come back and Weiss seems to have lost this fight. Why? So first off I’d like to make note of my previous lead up. This fight of Weiss’s I feel has her fighting a lot more like Winter here than how we normally see her fight. Why? Well we understand that they’re most certainly under a time crunch and quite a bit desperate to finish this matter as quickly as possible before things get worse. From the little we have seen it would seem Winter fights in a quite fast, up close, and personal way. Winter’s strong, fast, and gets results quite quickly, so who better to emulate in this moment than her, when Weiss needs to see results and quickly(doesn’t hurt that Weiss already looks up to her anyways as well). As we see though this somewhat desperate bid to end things quickly just doesn’t work for her. Unlike Winter who seems to be able to keep this style and speed of fighting up for sometime, Weiss isn’t able to do so,(at least not yet) and she loses. Yet Weiss suffers no consequences from this loss, (barring a bit of hurt pride from that overconfidence she displayed earlier in this fight) since she's saved by Blake. Which is an important thing to note I feel in regards to her actions in the next fights.
Weiss and Yang vs. Flynt and Neon:
So if it isn’t obvious I love this fight, and I love it because of the setup that comes before it. At the time of V3 I found it interesting (and perhaps a bit off) that Winter’s discussion and reprimanding with and of Weiss came before this fight, but after a fight where we see team RWBY do what feels like extremely well. Thanks to re-watches and the context provided by later volumes though I’ve come to understand why I feel this was done the way it was done, as well as why I enjoy and love it so much. Qrow and Winter both tell Ruby, Yang, and Weiss respectively that they’ve been lucky, and I love that that comes after the RWBY vs. ABRN fight. Because it sets us as the viewers up to watch team RWBY’s next fight more closely, and what do we see in this fight? Well we see a fight that by all rights Neon and Flynt should’ve won.
Neon and Flynt came into this fight with a plan. They recognized that Yang and Weiss were prone to letting their emotions get the better of them and used that to separate the both of them and throw them off balance. (More reasons why I love the line from Winter to Weiss about emotions granting you strength but never letting them overpower you.) Both Flynt and Neon pick their opponents well here no two ways about it, they were by many accounts better. So with both Yang and Weiss doing so poorly here and on the ropes what does Weiss do in her desperation? She sacrifices herself to take out Flynt with her, and yet it doesn’t work, he’s still standing and she’s out. What happens next we all know, Yang wins because of her anger and semblance. Throwing our previous lesson out the window right? No, this fight continues to further bolster the confidence of an already overconfident team RWBY, and especially Yang who pays quite dearly later on this very volume. (which is why I love the fact that Tai brings up this very issue with Yang later in V4) What about Weiss though what does she take from this fight? She gets praised by her opponents, both her and Yang do actually. Adding to their confidence, and preventing either of them from learning why letting their emotions get the better of them during a fight can be so detrimental, and as for Weiss specifically it prevents her from coming to understand what that desperation of hers could end up costing her in a real fight.
Which leads nicely to, Weiss vs. Vernal at the battle of Haven:
So here we have a Weiss who’s gotten stronger, whose learned to control her summons, and has seen just how powerful they can be and make her. So that’s what she focuses on in this fight trying to get that summon out. Many people though argued (and still do) that this isn’t Weiss, that this doesn’t feel or seem like her. I disagree with this view point. This once again shows Weiss’s over reliance on winning and winning quickly and the desperate ways she’ll try and pull that off. As before with her trying to emulate Winter and her style and finding out that didn’t work. She’s found a new move that to her feels(for lack of a better term) like an instant win button essentially. As I said earlier this fight comes after one where Weiss just used her summon for the first time and saw how well it worked, how much power it had. Couple that with how I’ve talked about her training, the focus of it, and how that would lead her to make the missteps of many other young fighters coming to grips with these things for the first time, why wouldn’t she view it in this manner. The difference here, many others have the chance to learn these pitfalls and traps in places and fights where their lives are not on the line. Weiss has not, as I’ve pointed out she’s been lucky to avoid those consequences, and in the one fight where things wouldn’t have been so dire the fight was still won through luck, and Weiss had been praised for her desperate move. So in this fight where emotions are high, where they’re once more pressed for time, and on the back foot, Weiss reverts once more to those desperate moves that she never learned her lesson for, and this time they cost her, they cost her dearly in fact for Weiss at the end of this fight is left on the floor dying.
A move by the show that many consider awful I know, for in their mind where are the stakes? We all know Weiss is going to be okay she’s a main character, but I feel stakes weren’t really the major focus here. As I’ve been doing with this piece the focus here was on Weiss finally learning her lesson. Learning what it meant to fight without letting her emotions get the better of her, what it meant to try and pull desperate moves like this one. This is why I find it interesting to watch V6 and see a Weiss that to me feels more held back, more subdued in some ways. Is this a Weiss who’s learned? One who’s still processing? Or something else entirely? It’s with these thoughts in mind that I look to the future, and find it interesting that we see Weiss’s outfit choice and change up for V7, and see something that is so strikingly different from her in the past. What has that Weiss come to understand and learn from her past experience? How will the show show this going forward? How will Weiss and Winters relationship be explored as Weiss has come to in some small way maybe discover that emulating Winter is not how she’ll win, how she’ll succeed, and how she’ll survive moving forward.
Now I know there are a few solo fights that I haven’t gone over in this piece. Like the White trailer, and Weiss vs the Lancers I only gave the briefest of mentions to above. This is mostly because there isn’t much to take from these things and use with the points above. I can say for a brief bit that the White trailer to me shows a Weiss that is indeed in that moment emulating to some degree her sisters style, and seeing it’s success there might’ve prompted her to continue to do so later. As for the Lancer fight, I feel that it’s mostly focused on the summon and what it’s capable of, but I do find it interesting that Weiss being someone who isn’t the fondest of taking a more supportive(is what I’ll go with here) role in fighting has to take that role with her summons. As well bringing up the V7 trailer, I find it interesting that we see Weiss using her summon in a partial manner as a means of maneuverability. Is that a Weiss that’s learned to incorporate her summon into her fighting style more than just summoning it being the end goal? Or is this a Weiss who still may not have taken the lesson to heart, and is trying to still be more upfront with her style of fighting since she’s still not fond of that more supportive role? As I said a lot of potential here which I’m curious to see where it goes and is taken.
To end off though once more these are just my thoughts and opinions on something that I see many talk about that I wanted to share. Since I’ve never personally seen anyone take this stance and view/talk about things in this way before. I find it interesting, and I’ll find it even more interesting to come back to this after V7 and see what I got right or wrong and how my view points might’ve changed. This is another reason why I choose to do this now instead of waiting. Hopefully for those who read this long winded and probably scattered collection of thoughts you’re able to take something beneficial away from it. And please do share with me your own thoughts, whether you disagree or agree.
Submitted October 15, 2019 at 10:50PM by Demonwolf002 https://ift.tt/35FMAQH
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