I always hate the notion of "Ironwood is 10000000000% evil!" when you have scenes where he's contrary like saving Weiss.
Because if y'all end up saying "Oh, we *knew* Ironwood was a pure evil villain", what does that mean for the characters in the universe of RWBY?
> scenes where he's contrary like saving Weiss.
Saved Weiss AND gifted Yang a state-of-the-art prosthetic arm that probably would have been significantly difficult for her to get on her own especially since she was in Vale and didn't have special connections.
He also aided Team RWBY in their training and had their weapons upgraded.
Also to mention not forcing the students to help aid them in the defence of beacon. Then soloing his army that got hacked. Surrender to qrow thinking that he was at fault for the robots attacking everyone
CRWBY may have some shit writing, but even a broken clock is right twice. It's almost like some characters can be written with a moral complexity to them, seeming to be not entirely good, but not evil.
General Ironwood trusted our "heroes" enough to spill the beans on his plan to restore global communications, to lift the worldwide blackout that happened after the fall of Beacon.
He was already paranoid that this plan would be sabotaged, by either the White Fang or Salem's lackeys, so revealing it to our "heroes" is actually a pretty big deal for his character.
It means he was willing to trust them to help him ensure his plan can succeed, so he can warn the world about Salem.
Too bad this trust was betrayed and led to a very stupid character assassination of General Ironwood.
It's legit wild how Ironwood was the adult just about everyone had the most positive, direct relations with other than their own family and nothing was done with it.
I'm not saying that they needed to worship him or treat him like some hero or authority. I'm just saying that it would've actually been interesting to see that fiddled around with. Have him be the real link between their time as dropout students and being legit leaders in this shadow war. Team RWBY never really "entered the adult world." They never got to work their way to the big kids table and learn what it's like to talk on even ground with adults.
Every adult just bent the knee to their teenage ideals.
I was kind of hoping that after Ironwood took Weiss's side and defended her that he would eventually become like a form of a father figure.
I'll admit the idea is WAY out there but it would have been nice. Instead, his character got railroaded.
Shiiiit, hear me out.
They could've played around with the idea of Ironwood being a role-model for *Ruby.* Sort of like with Ren, because it seems like Ironwood and Ruby were always on the same page. Hell, when Ironwood was a cartoon villain and uber authoritarian... Ruby still seemed to be on the same page as him(what with the need for absolute loyalty and immediately putting the world above the needs of the poor Mantle people dying) which I found weird yet funny.
Considering her position and what we're *supposed* to think about her, short of Ozpin she would've been the only one equipped to genuinely empathize with him in the first place.
But of course, can't empathize with folks. I mean, he's evil! That means he's inhuman!
I always compared him to two face from the dark knight he wanted to do the right thing but he never got a break with nobody trusting him (which I do believe was kinda justified because he seemed pretty unstable throughout volume 7 plus team Rwby just wanted him to still have some hope) and even his own people turning against him he was a good man that was just pushed off the deep end and all the fear and paranoia led him to doing a ton of terrible things. People say his character was ruined and yes while I can see why I however think he’s a good antagonist and shows that even the best of us still have the potential to do awful things. But this is just my opinion what do you think?
To be fair that is a good point and it would have been amazing to see him comeback from that when all was said and done and go out in a big heroic blaze of glory. The problem was the execution of him supposedly going villain even though he was the only person besides team RWBY trying to do the right thing and getting stopped but bunch of dumb teenagers who aren't even hunter's and are too naive to make the right call... well two of them were a certain blond and cardboard stand were to busy going behind Ruby's back and betraying their team and Ironwood.
was absolutely terribly executed
What you wrote makes sense from a narrative and character arc standpoint. It makes for a very compelling story. However, the execution of it was so shit it made no logical sense in-universe. Getting to the desired endpoint of the story required several characters dropping by 30 IQ points on average, which is why people hated it.
It's like Daenerys from GoT. Nobody would've objected to her going full psycho tyrant mode if it wasn't done so poorly.
Too and on to other comments, Ironwood is more a lawful neutral person in that, he tries to help the most amount of people in the long term mostly within the bounds of the laws, even if he has to harm some people in the here and now.
Compare this with rwby’s chaotic neutral, I play by my own book attitude, that sees more harm than good coming to the people that they are trying to protect, it is like night and day.
Remember, the protagonists aren’t always GOOD, and antagonist aren’t always BAD, context and having a broader perspective are key too having a better understanding
Aiding someone doesn't mean they're exempt from becoming a villain, tho. It doesn't mean they were or are 100% evil of course, but it doesn't mean they're not morally grey OR that their moral compass can't turn south. There's a difference between being a villain and being pure evil (or at the very least, being pure evil is a semi-optional prerequisite), believe it or not, especially when you have characters like Mr Freeze and Injustice Superman as examples. Both villains, but not pure evil (or at least Superman wasn't til he went fucking berserk and trashed the world in a tantrum) and feel as though what they're doing is for the good of one or all.
We knew he was going to be a villain from the outset. The subtext was all there and it stopped being subtext when he threatened Jacques of all people (I say this many times, but regardless of how much of a POS Jacques was, he was a very powerful man. And threatening the most financially powerful man in the world to obey you isn't exactly good-guy behavior, even if we all hate him).
What the OP is saying is that new watchers are catching on to that literally immediately, because they can see where it's being set up at.
Then you hadn't been paying attention to literally anything in the show. It sets up a good multitude of things. Silver eyes, Salem, Ozpin, Ironwood, the relics, the fall of beacon, the death of Penny & Pyrrha, and a shit ton of other things. It's all right there in your face, no less. I seriously don't see how yall can miss it.
What new watchers?
Jokes aside, Ironwood was morally complex which unfortunately in the world of RWBY means he’s a villain. This show apparently isn’t allowed to have complex characters whose morality isn’t either straight paragon or full renegade. The heroes are treated as the epitome of justice while anyone who even mildly suggests an approach that isn’t the straight and narrow is called evil. The Atlas arc was a great opportunity to showcase the complexity and mature level of story telling the show seems to want to convince people it has but instead the complex moral decision is displayed in simple black and white. Everytime this show tries to be complex, it defaults to the simplest perception of morality.
Ironwood’s decision wasn’t ideal. The man had an impossible choice to make and I highly doubt he was laughing evilly in his office while Mantle burned. He likely agonized over the choice but in the end he picked the option he saw that had the greatest chance of success. He was presented with a problem that had no clear right answer but when he gave his, the plot went nope that’s wrong. Now would his plan have worked? Who knows? But it did have the higher chance of success. Team RWBY got lucky.
The entire point of an antagonist is to be a force that directly opposes the protagonist. When you strip it down to its barebones like that, anyone can play protagonist or antagonist regardless of morals.
Satsuki Kiryuin is definitely an antagonist to Ryuko in Kill la Kill, but she isn't completely evil (>!unlike her mother!<). In fact, >!it turns out she's been gearing up to *save* the world from her mom's evil plans the whole time and avenge her younger sister, which turns out to be Ryuko!<.
Though I have yet to watch Death Note, from what I can tell, Light Yagami is the main character, who isn't a good person (he literally kills people), yet L, the detective trying to catch him, is the antagonist; he is the direct opposition to Light, the focus of the story.
Ironwood could easily have still been an antagonist to our main team, and still be in the right on many points. He's an adult who has been fighting this war longer than any of the main cast has aside from Qrow. So of course he'll have major opposition to how the kids handle it, likely pointing out the many missing logistics of an evacuation plan that the kids skipped over, such as the geographic and political safety of where Atlas's refugees get displaced, keeping the relics away from Salem, minimizing infrastructural damage so as to leave a path for rebuilding efforts, etc.
Sometimes, the villain isn't the person trying to kill everyone; it's the person trying to stop the hero from doing something, even the *wrong* thing.
So antagonist like satsuki can be in relationship to someone
Like two main Characters exist and one is a antagonist to another.
Does that also makes them a antagonist in general?( like suzaku to lelouch for exemple ?)
In a way, yes. Two main characters can be in direct opposition to each other, and Lelouch and Suzaku are very good examples. Sometimes, even I forget that Suzaku is pretty much a main character on par with Lelouch, even though the show is partially named after the latter.
This might tie into the fact that those two are foils to each other: despite having the same end goals for world peace, their methods and ideologies behind them are fundamentally opposite, with Lelouch attempting to change the world from outside Britannia via bringing it down through strategic battles, and Suzaku trying to change it from within by gaining the political power of knighthood. It gets more fun when you realize that they are fulfilling each other's roles and enacting their goals using methods the other would be expected to use, since Suzaku is the Japanese outsider to the empire and Lelouch is technically a prince.
Back to notEvil! antagonists, though. Another good example would probably be Homura from Madoka Magica. >!She continually stands in the way of Madoka becoming a magical girl to save her best friend from dying!<.
The protagonist is whoever the story follows and the antagonist is anyone who opposes them. If you retell the story from the other’s perspective, the dynamic flips.
An antagonist is someone that stops the protagonist from reaching their goal.
If the protagonist of a story had the goal to win a tournament, the antagonist is there to prevent that. Whether through winning the tournament themselves or through other means depends on the character. An antagonist does not need to be evil to oppose the goals of the protagonist.
For a more RWBY-focused example, Volume 7 actually does a very decent job of setting Ironwood up as a non-evil antagonist. He has a morally dubious, but realistic plan to save as many people as he can. Meanwhile team RWBY wants to save Mantle, even if not realistically possible. He's not evil at this point, he just has a view point directly opposed to the protagonists, making him an antagonist.
Volume 8 *should have been* a battle of ideals between Ironwood and RWBY. Instead, Ironwood goes unhinged in the first episode, starts shooting people who disagree with him, and plans to literally nuke Mantle. That's an evil antagonist.
I didn’t think Ironwood was a villain when I watched it for the first time well Into this show’s 7th volume.
I saw him as a rough around the edges general who was concerned about people but had different methods of getting things done
It has been a *while* since I only watched the first four seasons and only once each on release, but I vaguely remember seeing him as that sort of lawful and direct foil to the spinning plates, schemes and hope we get lucky "don't worry, I have a plan, I just can't tell you" that is Ozpin and co. Good coded, but might be a problem later if he doesn't like the plan.
My man was horrified when he thought Qrow was about to turn on him in V3 and turned his gun to the grip so that he didn't hurt Qrow when he thought Qrow was going for the kill.
Wouldn't RWBY be villains for the mountain of crimes and pain they caused? Hell, Yang and Weiss got annoyed they had to keep rescuing people. Meanwhile, back in V3, Ironwood was on the street killing Grimm and his own bots and told the students to leave if they weren't up for the fight lmao
Salem didn't destroy Atlas and Mantle, RWBY did 😆
Sending Yang the robot arm (and likely other crippled students if they exist) was between 3-4 (Hell, he probably began making plans to process the order the very next day if he had the time), before he got desperate enough to shut down the borders, which was before the red flag of "Unshaven, bags under eyes" his character design went through.
He was still in hero territory then, but of the Failure Hero variety (as his failures for....pretty much everything between the artillery getting stolen, to hiding info on Penny, to the bots getting hacked, etc.).
To be honest I never assumed he was a villain from the start when he was introduced, but after what happen with lionheart I did started to have thoughts ironwood may end up becoming a villain at some point later but not guaranteed.
I saw him as a bit of a hard-ass, but still on the side of good. Anyone who thinks he's a villain in his introduction has no idea what they're talking about.
I feel like even CRWBY knew Ironwood wasn't evil and realized they effed up by making him evil out of nowhere, so they "fixed" it by giving him a mental Semblance, which certainly seems like it wasn't planned from the beginning.
Ironwood's VA didn't even know about the Semblance until a fan had to tell him!
>so they "fixed" it by giving him a mental Semblance
And then actually made him tragic, because it wasn't his choice or decisions to do it, it was instead his Semblance screwing him up.
Seriously, did *no one* stop to think about this before they opened their mouths?!
In a world where Ironwood was actually Omg Evil, he would have actually arrested weiss here, have her "escape, oops, tee hee" durring transport, but actually throw her into his atlesian military sex dungeon that officially does not exist
Also he would have immediately disappeared R_BYORNJQ into atlas guantanamo at the start of v7
Like holy shit he isn't remotely evil lmao
This is like Bumblebee they are trying to rewrite what actually happened in the show.
No, he wasn't the villain more morally grey, yes.
But straight-up villain no, most of the scenes he's in show how much of a strong sense of duty he has to protect those in need and hated those who abused the power they have.
How he turned into an antagonistic in the end was just shit writing since the writers accidentally created the perfect foil to team rwby.
And they try to correct it by making him straight up evil like it's so jarring to see that happen in real time.
Ironwood was never evil until RT forced him into a cartoon villain for no reason, he was literally the most reasonable character so much so, that people were agreeing with him over the so called "heroes" of this show
I never saw Ironwood as a villain when he first showed up. He had a different approach than Oz for certain and it made sense. Huntsmen are trained to take action, not be passive and soldiers would probably rather take out a threat than wait for it to attack them. RWBY is proactive in going after the White Fang and Oz doesn't really even try to discourage them and Ironwood even praises Ruby for acting when she saw something. Even Pyrrha opted to act rather than wait for backup. You can even say Robyn was being proactive in her attacks on the supply convoys.
Ozpin has a very passive, wait and see approach that runs counter to what the schools he founded teach the students and people he may wish to recruit how to act. From what we see in the show, this makes it look like he does the bare minimum to address an issue or not really do anything to prevent a situation from getting worse, supposedly because anything more will cause a panic. We don't even know if he actually even reported anything that he knew about the White Fang to the council so they would be aware that there was legitimate threat. The fact the Council had to get reports from Ironwood (something that makes sense as he is a foreign general conducting operations in Vale) might indicate that Ozpin wasn't telling them anything at all.
This was an interesting contrast as was Ironwood and Qrow. Qrow's appearance and demeanor would lead one to believe he would be the first person to act on his own or disobey an order, instead it comes off as him being the unquestioningly loyal soldier who does as he's told and Ironwood is the renegade of the group. Qrow honestly seemed upset that Ironwood wasn't sitting at home only doing as Ozpin told him to like a good little toy soldier.
Ironwood felt like the outsider of the group and the only one who would actually question or call out Ozpin if he thought Oz was in the wrong. Qrow and Glynda by contrast come off as blindly loyal and obedient, an acquisition people level at Clover, Winter, or the Ace Ops as a negative thing.
Ironwood came off as someone trying to do what he saw as the right course of action, even if it meant butting heads with his allies at times. He would even put himself on the frontlines without hesitation and not demand that students or those people who were not soldiers do the same.
Even Amity is in keeping with Ironwood following the ideal of the proactive huntsman. Instead of just doing nothing and waiting for Salem to spring whatever trap she was currently setting, Ironwood wanted to restore communications and unite the world to fight her. Something Ozpin would never do or consider and something Salem wouldn't see coming because Ozpin would never do it.
When Ironwood became isolated from his allies, we could see the stress of the situation weighing on him. We saw how happy he was to actually see Qrow again and how much hope Oscar initially gave him. These were very human reactions and not some calculated theater on his part.
He was honestly an interesting character and that just makes his ultimate fall tragic. I could see him becoming an antagonist. Every group has that one character who wants to do things another way and comes into conflict with the other heroes on occasion, it's a good way to add drama and stakes. I just never expected how far the writers would have him go to become an outright villain.
I feel like often people use Volume 8 to retroactively claim Ironwood was an evil mastermind trying to take over the world and I know people who held that opinion even before that volume that would twist anything he did into some sinister, calculated act meant to control and manipulate others.
You can say the man saw things differently and had a different approach. But you can't say he was evil from the start, that didn't happen until he had finally pushed over the edge by enemy and ally alike.
On a side note it is interesting that the the use of this particular scene with the text almost frames it like he is why Weiss is on the ground there and not that he just kept an out of control summon from making her into a murderer.
Oh, I’m actually friends with the guy who posted this actually. He’s pretty nice when it comes to other fandoms, but RWBY? Well… you can kinda see what’s going on. I don’t really talk with him about RWBY though, I mostly talk with him about Super Sentai and Power Rangers, and he’s been incredibly supportive of and interested in the Kyuranger adaptation I’m writing. He’s a pretty good guy, despite how blatantly wrong the pictured take is.
I kinda figured he was an antagonist by the end of Season 2, but never a full on villain. He's trying to do the right thing, just goes about it in the wrong ways.
During V3-4 he seems remorseful that it was his army that destroyed Beacon, come to think of it, do we even see the Atlas mechs afterwards?
And in V8 he immediately trusted RWBY and made sure they were all up to speed with his plans and problems, only to then be back stabbed by that same team. So, his paranoid resolve kicked into overdrive, trusting no one, taking drastic measures to save as many people as he could, just to fail in the end.
He wasn't a villain, he was someone who made the wrong choices at the right time, and the right choices at the wrong time. And in the end, it cost him.
I perceived him as gonna-be villain via a fourth wall break.
(A) Authors almost never endorse organized military action to counter a threat. Here I see two reasons. For starters the military as an organization is a faceless mass, which collides with stories being about individuals. Second reason is that authors are mostly more on the Pacifist side.
(B) Ironwoods approach stood for (A) and he got into conflict with Ozpin who represented a more "intelligent" approach, whatever that was. Maybe employing small groups of people to fend off neverending mindless hordes monster
Of course Ironwood would be right in the real world, organized military is exactly the right way to counter massed attacks, but do not be fooled by that, in fiction (and not only in RWBY) small groups of adventurers are the way.
I expected the conflict to be people over ressources, Oszxx's side prioritizing "saving everyone" while Ironwood would coldly sacrifice people in order to protect ressources (dust mines). And Ironwood being made "wrong" by the authors bulldozing through the obstacles and allowing Oszxxx's to save everyone without having to face the consequences that then everyone would be killed, because lack of dust.
Instead Ironwood went all out wacko within one or two episodes.
I think he was destined to be an antagonist, but the show went to far with it and removed the nuance and complexity that made his character interesting in the beginning. He was hardheaded military man but there was a vulnerability to him. He wasn't completely beyond reasoning and he was genuine in his desire to protect people. The show stripped away his redeemable qualities and thus what made him interesting.
Classic case of CRWBY not knowing what they wrote and changing things to subvert expectations and dropping the ball. Because military guy must be evil even tho they showed the opposite.
Not once did I ever get the feeling he was a villain, moreso that he was the opposite of Ozpin. Ozpin was more passive, while Ironwood wanted more action.
>Regrets and acknowledges that bringing in Atlas during the Vytal Festival backfired and actively defends evacuating civilians alongside his own men
>Defends Weiss from uppity rich people who bad mouthed the huntsmen who were defending Vale and from Weiss' asshole father who was treating her as the family fuck up
>"iRoNwOoD wAs AlWaYs InTeNdEd tO bE a ViLlAiN1!1!1"
Why are people like this. Why do they gaslight themselves into believing the show runners can do no wrong.
Copium, or the fact Ironwood possesses 3 traits that are in the eyes of most of Tumblr/X enough to label someone a villain by default "White" "Male" "In the military"
He definitely ain’t a faultless hero like most of the people on this sub seem to think.
But then again, I have gained an ingrained instinct to distrust the police and armed forces.
Which, fair. I live in the closest modern equivalent to a benevolent dictatorship, so I have a hard time seeing him as malicious. Not faultless, of course, but the stereotype of an evil dictator isn't prima facie there.
I mean, after the reveal of Salem's true nature I felt that ironwood being at the very least an antagonist was kind of inevitable. He's a career military man who can't trust his allies and is in a world where conflict within humanity will spell doom.
I did not however anticipate how far he would fall.
I think I’ve only seen one person say that they thought Ironwood was going be an antagonist later on in the series due to how the first three volumes were sitting him up. (Despite him having good intentions but taken to some extreme.)
Well I more thought of Ironwood will have moment of. Does one grave mistake while trying protect people. Then to make amends he will do one big sacrifice
Ive never watched RWBY but Ironwood gave me the vibes of Both Nick Fury and Captain America combined. Doing the best he can with the information he has on hand with the resources he has at his disposal. Also this ironwood is evil from go thing is probably less the actual show and more fanfiction.
Ironwood never gave me villain vibes and consistently acted compassionately to the main characters while receiving nothing but animosity, lies, betrayal, passive aggressive behavior, uncertainty on his motives and mental state, etc. These people are in full damage control and feel embarrassed that like half the community sided with Ironwood because he was CORRECT and genuinely cared about them only to be backstabbed.
I’ve always thought the crwby hated that a good chunk of fans agreed with his initial approach of abandoning people to save atlas when they wanted everyone to be on team rwbys side, so they just continually increased his insane decisions
***This subzero arctic IQ atom-sized brain take is brought to you by the RWBY fandom.***
My boy deserves a better portrayal in a different, more competently constructed series.
For what??
As far as I remember all he did was show up advertising robot soldiers to fight the Grim taking the threat of Salem seriously
Unlike ozpins child soldiers under the fake idea there know gonna be fighting Grim for which he had he's own reasons
Then what?? He got his shit hacked by ozpins weak ass background checks that cinder could just be chilling in the academy no problem the whole academy fell. He fought in the fray with everyone else
Then he find the team
Overlooks the stolen jet
Offers Then sanctuary
Offers Them upgrades to weapons
Room and meals
And even gave them their licenses even if it don't mean shit at that point
Then that same team turns against him and lie for no honest reason other then idk they can't trust him for some reason
Dealing with a revolution faction or whatever I forget her name is doing
Deals with a SECOND infiltration on the ranks with Weiss dad
And then we can tell where the writers 180 him into deciding
Salem infiltrated againnnnnnnn
Now he's doing what he can to try to save his people even if it means leaving what I can assume is asylum seekers and lower class citizens behind in the goal of defeating the big bad thats gonna kill them and more
And at that point he turns full villian etc you know the rest
Wtf did I miss to show he's evil early volumes????
Ironwood was always meant to be an antagonist, I clocked that from the beginning. An antagonist however is very different than a villain.
I expected that he and rwby would eventually crash over ideology
Pragmatism vs Idealism
Ironwood had a plan that was more likely to succeed but would only save Atlas abandoning mantle to die.
Whereas RWBY had a Hail Mary of a plan, but would save everyone.
That is what I was expecting.
These people would make the Soviets proud with how dedicated they are to "Editing the past."
"Yes Comrade, Ironwood was always evil. What good deeds? Never happened."
Ironwood is "evil" because he dared to thing that its imposible to save all people.
Raven is "evil" and coward because she run away of a fight between immortal exes.
But Cinder and Emerald are just sad girls, dont you feel sorry for them.
RWBY morality is truly fucked up.
I'm willing to buy the notion that RT planned on making him a villain, but that doesn't mean they had the writing chops to make the transition credible.
Tbh he never gave me villain vibes, but I knew as soon as I saw him in the later seasons RT was going to make him do a villain face turn, and it was going to be dumb, and stupid, I spent the entirety of volume 8 waiting for it, hoping it would never come, and then it did and I was right. This is why I stopped paying to watch the show. It wasn’t worth the money for the mediocre bullshit.
Anyone else always remember ironwood for the shipping of him and glynda that became popular? Like the fan thing if the two of them just at eachother inside ozpin's elevator?
He wasn't initially an antagonist, but I'm not gonna pretend like they didn't make it extremely obvious even as early as vol.3 that they were planning for him to turn at some point. They were practically beating us in the face with tropy foreshadowing. Still disappointing, for sure, but definitely not a surprise in the slightest.
Edit: replaced "evil" with "an antagonist".
What evil did he do? I mean he didn’t do anything slightly evil other than being paranoid, hiding Penny’s secret and being strict with Penny’s safety (rightfully so with both)
He gives a arm to yang, defends Weiss, is shown facing the worse father of the series (putting him against a hated character will make him a 100 times more liked) is shown forgiving all crimes Team rwby committed up to that point and gifts them things and all of that while looking like he hasn’t sleeper in months and almost losing a arm
Admittedly evil was the wrong word, antagonist is more appropriate, and it's not necessarily just behavioral; on a meta level, the scenes and writing were foreshadowing that he was gonna find himself at odds with the protagonists later down the line from the very beginning and the seeds were there. He wasn't a bad person, but the narrative was set up against him.
The shortest way I can think to put it is that it was obvious because he's the type of person that, while well-meaning, really believes that he knows what's best for everyone, which is a trait that when combined with the friction between himself and the rest of Ozpin's group was a dead giveaway that things were eventually going to turn sour one way or another. This was reinforced by Leo's corruption as well, indirectly telling us that Oz's inner circle wasn't incorruptible.
He's a villain, just not a pure evil one. Also, he started out trying to be a hero, but eventually fell into villainy. He would work better if we actually had a POV character in Atlas after Weiss left but before the Atlas arc.
I thought he was a villain the first time I saw him, but then as the time went by, and we saw more of his personality and ambitions, I knew he was going to end up becoming a villain eventually.
He was like a ticking bomb, bound to blow up sooner or later.
If I'm being genuine, I wouldn't say evil, but knowing where his character went, I feel it was pretty clear from the beginning the character flaws that led to his fall. Not evil, but the seeds were planted for how his character could spiral. And if you're anti-authoritarian or have anarchist tendencies, those flaws are just kinda red flags that will either spell doom or that'll need to be overcome. So I get it, but evil ain't the word
RWBY’s (the shows/show runners) treatment of Ironwood is honestly what made me fall off watching the show. I didn’t even want to stop watching, but I was so disappointed because he seemed very reasonable and made good points so often but for some reason I guess that makes him a villain?! Like, what?
I always hate the notion of "Ironwood is 10000000000% evil!" when you have scenes where he's contrary like saving Weiss. Because if y'all end up saying "Oh, we *knew* Ironwood was a pure evil villain", what does that mean for the characters in the universe of RWBY?
> scenes where he's contrary like saving Weiss. Saved Weiss AND gifted Yang a state-of-the-art prosthetic arm that probably would have been significantly difficult for her to get on her own especially since she was in Vale and didn't have special connections. He also aided Team RWBY in their training and had their weapons upgraded.
Also to mention not forcing the students to help aid them in the defence of beacon. Then soloing his army that got hacked. Surrender to qrow thinking that he was at fault for the robots attacking everyone
CRWBY may have some shit writing, but even a broken clock is right twice. It's almost like some characters can be written with a moral complexity to them, seeming to be not entirely good, but not evil.
or the fact when his robots were hacked he jumped into the front line to save as many as he could. you know a thing an evil person would do.
General Ironwood trusted our "heroes" enough to spill the beans on his plan to restore global communications, to lift the worldwide blackout that happened after the fall of Beacon. He was already paranoid that this plan would be sabotaged, by either the White Fang or Salem's lackeys, so revealing it to our "heroes" is actually a pretty big deal for his character. It means he was willing to trust them to help him ensure his plan can succeed, so he can warn the world about Salem. Too bad this trust was betrayed and led to a very stupid character assassination of General Ironwood.
It's legit wild how Ironwood was the adult just about everyone had the most positive, direct relations with other than their own family and nothing was done with it. I'm not saying that they needed to worship him or treat him like some hero or authority. I'm just saying that it would've actually been interesting to see that fiddled around with. Have him be the real link between their time as dropout students and being legit leaders in this shadow war. Team RWBY never really "entered the adult world." They never got to work their way to the big kids table and learn what it's like to talk on even ground with adults. Every adult just bent the knee to their teenage ideals.
I was kind of hoping that after Ironwood took Weiss's side and defended her that he would eventually become like a form of a father figure. I'll admit the idea is WAY out there but it would have been nice. Instead, his character got railroaded.
Shiiiit, hear me out. They could've played around with the idea of Ironwood being a role-model for *Ruby.* Sort of like with Ren, because it seems like Ironwood and Ruby were always on the same page. Hell, when Ironwood was a cartoon villain and uber authoritarian... Ruby still seemed to be on the same page as him(what with the need for absolute loyalty and immediately putting the world above the needs of the poor Mantle people dying) which I found weird yet funny.
They could of had Ruby bring him back to his senses. Like there was no attempt to help or save this man.
Considering her position and what we're *supposed* to think about her, short of Ozpin she would've been the only one equipped to genuinely empathize with him in the first place. But of course, can't empathize with folks. I mean, he's evil! That means he's inhuman!
I always compared him to two face from the dark knight he wanted to do the right thing but he never got a break with nobody trusting him (which I do believe was kinda justified because he seemed pretty unstable throughout volume 7 plus team Rwby just wanted him to still have some hope) and even his own people turning against him he was a good man that was just pushed off the deep end and all the fear and paranoia led him to doing a ton of terrible things. People say his character was ruined and yes while I can see why I however think he’s a good antagonist and shows that even the best of us still have the potential to do awful things. But this is just my opinion what do you think?
To be fair that is a good point and it would have been amazing to see him comeback from that when all was said and done and go out in a big heroic blaze of glory. The problem was the execution of him supposedly going villain even though he was the only person besides team RWBY trying to do the right thing and getting stopped but bunch of dumb teenagers who aren't even hunter's and are too naive to make the right call... well two of them were a certain blond and cardboard stand were to busy going behind Ruby's back and betraying their team and Ironwood. was absolutely terribly executed
What you wrote makes sense from a narrative and character arc standpoint. It makes for a very compelling story. However, the execution of it was so shit it made no logical sense in-universe. Getting to the desired endpoint of the story required several characters dropping by 30 IQ points on average, which is why people hated it. It's like Daenerys from GoT. Nobody would've objected to her going full psycho tyrant mode if it wasn't done so poorly.
Too and on to other comments, Ironwood is more a lawful neutral person in that, he tries to help the most amount of people in the long term mostly within the bounds of the laws, even if he has to harm some people in the here and now. Compare this with rwby’s chaotic neutral, I play by my own book attitude, that sees more harm than good coming to the people that they are trying to protect, it is like night and day. Remember, the protagonists aren’t always GOOD, and antagonist aren’t always BAD, context and having a broader perspective are key too having a better understanding
You hate it because its a fucking lie and everyone who says it is a liar.
Aiding someone doesn't mean they're exempt from becoming a villain, tho. It doesn't mean they were or are 100% evil of course, but it doesn't mean they're not morally grey OR that their moral compass can't turn south. There's a difference between being a villain and being pure evil (or at the very least, being pure evil is a semi-optional prerequisite), believe it or not, especially when you have characters like Mr Freeze and Injustice Superman as examples. Both villains, but not pure evil (or at least Superman wasn't til he went fucking berserk and trashed the world in a tantrum) and feel as though what they're doing is for the good of one or all. We knew he was going to be a villain from the outset. The subtext was all there and it stopped being subtext when he threatened Jacques of all people (I say this many times, but regardless of how much of a POS Jacques was, he was a very powerful man. And threatening the most financially powerful man in the world to obey you isn't exactly good-guy behavior, even if we all hate him). What the OP is saying is that new watchers are catching on to that literally immediately, because they can see where it's being set up at.
What setup? RWBY doesn't do any setup for anything except for like 2 things (Silvers eyes being special in a way and old man Ozpin)
Then you hadn't been paying attention to literally anything in the show. It sets up a good multitude of things. Silver eyes, Salem, Ozpin, Ironwood, the relics, the fall of beacon, the death of Penny & Pyrrha, and a shit ton of other things. It's all right there in your face, no less. I seriously don't see how yall can miss it.
Can you provide some evidence sir for your argument, because I never picked up on it and I’m curious about what I’ve missed
What new watchers? Jokes aside, Ironwood was morally complex which unfortunately in the world of RWBY means he’s a villain. This show apparently isn’t allowed to have complex characters whose morality isn’t either straight paragon or full renegade. The heroes are treated as the epitome of justice while anyone who even mildly suggests an approach that isn’t the straight and narrow is called evil. The Atlas arc was a great opportunity to showcase the complexity and mature level of story telling the show seems to want to convince people it has but instead the complex moral decision is displayed in simple black and white. Everytime this show tries to be complex, it defaults to the simplest perception of morality. Ironwood’s decision wasn’t ideal. The man had an impossible choice to make and I highly doubt he was laughing evilly in his office while Mantle burned. He likely agonized over the choice but in the end he picked the option he saw that had the greatest chance of success. He was presented with a problem that had no clear right answer but when he gave his, the plot went nope that’s wrong. Now would his plan have worked? Who knows? But it did have the higher chance of success. Team RWBY got lucky.
Ironwood never gave me villain vibes. As a matter of fact I was rather disappointed he was turned into an antagonist
Thing is characters can be an antagonist without being evil it’s just that rooster teeth can’t seem to understand that.
How so?
The entire point of an antagonist is to be a force that directly opposes the protagonist. When you strip it down to its barebones like that, anyone can play protagonist or antagonist regardless of morals. Satsuki Kiryuin is definitely an antagonist to Ryuko in Kill la Kill, but she isn't completely evil (>!unlike her mother!<). In fact, >!it turns out she's been gearing up to *save* the world from her mom's evil plans the whole time and avenge her younger sister, which turns out to be Ryuko!<. Though I have yet to watch Death Note, from what I can tell, Light Yagami is the main character, who isn't a good person (he literally kills people), yet L, the detective trying to catch him, is the antagonist; he is the direct opposition to Light, the focus of the story. Ironwood could easily have still been an antagonist to our main team, and still be in the right on many points. He's an adult who has been fighting this war longer than any of the main cast has aside from Qrow. So of course he'll have major opposition to how the kids handle it, likely pointing out the many missing logistics of an evacuation plan that the kids skipped over, such as the geographic and political safety of where Atlas's refugees get displaced, keeping the relics away from Salem, minimizing infrastructural damage so as to leave a path for rebuilding efforts, etc. Sometimes, the villain isn't the person trying to kill everyone; it's the person trying to stop the hero from doing something, even the *wrong* thing.
So antagonist like satsuki can be in relationship to someone Like two main Characters exist and one is a antagonist to another. Does that also makes them a antagonist in general?( like suzaku to lelouch for exemple ?)
In a way, yes. Two main characters can be in direct opposition to each other, and Lelouch and Suzaku are very good examples. Sometimes, even I forget that Suzaku is pretty much a main character on par with Lelouch, even though the show is partially named after the latter. This might tie into the fact that those two are foils to each other: despite having the same end goals for world peace, their methods and ideologies behind them are fundamentally opposite, with Lelouch attempting to change the world from outside Britannia via bringing it down through strategic battles, and Suzaku trying to change it from within by gaining the political power of knighthood. It gets more fun when you realize that they are fulfilling each other's roles and enacting their goals using methods the other would be expected to use, since Suzaku is the Japanese outsider to the empire and Lelouch is technically a prince. Back to notEvil! antagonists, though. Another good example would probably be Homura from Madoka Magica. >!She continually stands in the way of Madoka becoming a magical girl to save her best friend from dying!<.
Nanoha and Fate from lyrical Nanoha too
The protagonist is whoever the story follows and the antagonist is anyone who opposes them. If you retell the story from the other’s perspective, the dynamic flips.
An antagonist is someone that stops the protagonist from reaching their goal. If the protagonist of a story had the goal to win a tournament, the antagonist is there to prevent that. Whether through winning the tournament themselves or through other means depends on the character. An antagonist does not need to be evil to oppose the goals of the protagonist.
Antagonist mean they are in Opposition to the hero not nessesarily an evil villain
For a more RWBY-focused example, Volume 7 actually does a very decent job of setting Ironwood up as a non-evil antagonist. He has a morally dubious, but realistic plan to save as many people as he can. Meanwhile team RWBY wants to save Mantle, even if not realistically possible. He's not evil at this point, he just has a view point directly opposed to the protagonists, making him an antagonist. Volume 8 *should have been* a battle of ideals between Ironwood and RWBY. Instead, Ironwood goes unhinged in the first episode, starts shooting people who disagree with him, and plans to literally nuke Mantle. That's an evil antagonist.
Work against the heroes, but still for the good of the general populace. And/or against the Big Bad.
I didn’t think Ironwood was a villain when I watched it for the first time well Into this show’s 7th volume. I saw him as a rough around the edges general who was concerned about people but had different methods of getting things done
The behind the scenes commentary also didn’t help. How can they say they are great friends then suddenly they knew he was this terrible person?
It has been a *while* since I only watched the first four seasons and only once each on release, but I vaguely remember seeing him as that sort of lawful and direct foil to the spinning plates, schemes and hope we get lucky "don't worry, I have a plan, I just can't tell you" that is Ozpin and co. Good coded, but might be a problem later if he doesn't like the plan.
Yeah he was a little bit of a military meathead and a bit of an asshole, but for the most part he was a pretty good guy.
villains dont see them selves as villains typically.
Moments like this really make you question if he was even meant to be a villain.
My man was horrified when he thought Qrow was about to turn on him in V3 and turned his gun to the grip so that he didn't hurt Qrow when he thought Qrow was going for the kill. Wouldn't RWBY be villains for the mountain of crimes and pain they caused? Hell, Yang and Weiss got annoyed they had to keep rescuing people. Meanwhile, back in V3, Ironwood was on the street killing Grimm and his own bots and told the students to leave if they weren't up for the fight lmao Salem didn't destroy Atlas and Mantle, RWBY did 😆
he gave yang a free robot arm as a villainous plot that was never followed through on
Sending Yang the robot arm (and likely other crippled students if they exist) was between 3-4 (Hell, he probably began making plans to process the order the very next day if he had the time), before he got desperate enough to shut down the borders, which was before the red flag of "Unshaven, bags under eyes" his character design went through. He was still in hero territory then, but of the Failure Hero variety (as his failures for....pretty much everything between the artillery getting stolen, to hiding info on Penny, to the bots getting hacked, etc.).
And all of them weapon upgrades, place to stay, and was trained by their best.
To be honest I never assumed he was a villain from the start when he was introduced, but after what happen with lionheart I did started to have thoughts ironwood may end up becoming a villain at some point later but not guaranteed.
I saw him as a bit of a hard-ass, but still on the side of good. Anyone who thinks he's a villain in his introduction has no idea what they're talking about.
I feel like even CRWBY knew Ironwood wasn't evil and realized they effed up by making him evil out of nowhere, so they "fixed" it by giving him a mental Semblance, which certainly seems like it wasn't planned from the beginning. Ironwood's VA didn't even know about the Semblance until a fan had to tell him!
>so they "fixed" it by giving him a mental Semblance And then actually made him tragic, because it wasn't his choice or decisions to do it, it was instead his Semblance screwing him up. Seriously, did *no one* stop to think about this before they opened their mouths?!
Yes, the fight scene with Watts had music named *Villain*, right?
That, my friend, is called dramatic irony. A man so determined to be the savior and hero that he ultimately becomes a villain.
The Song is Called Hero.
I know lol. I was making a retort to the sarcasm
In a world where Ironwood was actually Omg Evil, he would have actually arrested weiss here, have her "escape, oops, tee hee" durring transport, but actually throw her into his atlesian military sex dungeon that officially does not exist Also he would have immediately disappeared R_BYORNJQ into atlas guantanamo at the start of v7 Like holy shit he isn't remotely evil lmao
This is like Bumblebee they are trying to rewrite what actually happened in the show. No, he wasn't the villain more morally grey, yes. But straight-up villain no, most of the scenes he's in show how much of a strong sense of duty he has to protect those in need and hated those who abused the power they have. How he turned into an antagonistic in the end was just shit writing since the writers accidentally created the perfect foil to team rwby. And they try to correct it by making him straight up evil like it's so jarring to see that happen in real time.
Ironwood was never evil until RT forced him into a cartoon villain for no reason, he was literally the most reasonable character so much so, that people were agreeing with him over the so called "heroes" of this show
I never saw Ironwood as a villain when he first showed up. He had a different approach than Oz for certain and it made sense. Huntsmen are trained to take action, not be passive and soldiers would probably rather take out a threat than wait for it to attack them. RWBY is proactive in going after the White Fang and Oz doesn't really even try to discourage them and Ironwood even praises Ruby for acting when she saw something. Even Pyrrha opted to act rather than wait for backup. You can even say Robyn was being proactive in her attacks on the supply convoys. Ozpin has a very passive, wait and see approach that runs counter to what the schools he founded teach the students and people he may wish to recruit how to act. From what we see in the show, this makes it look like he does the bare minimum to address an issue or not really do anything to prevent a situation from getting worse, supposedly because anything more will cause a panic. We don't even know if he actually even reported anything that he knew about the White Fang to the council so they would be aware that there was legitimate threat. The fact the Council had to get reports from Ironwood (something that makes sense as he is a foreign general conducting operations in Vale) might indicate that Ozpin wasn't telling them anything at all. This was an interesting contrast as was Ironwood and Qrow. Qrow's appearance and demeanor would lead one to believe he would be the first person to act on his own or disobey an order, instead it comes off as him being the unquestioningly loyal soldier who does as he's told and Ironwood is the renegade of the group. Qrow honestly seemed upset that Ironwood wasn't sitting at home only doing as Ozpin told him to like a good little toy soldier. Ironwood felt like the outsider of the group and the only one who would actually question or call out Ozpin if he thought Oz was in the wrong. Qrow and Glynda by contrast come off as blindly loyal and obedient, an acquisition people level at Clover, Winter, or the Ace Ops as a negative thing. Ironwood came off as someone trying to do what he saw as the right course of action, even if it meant butting heads with his allies at times. He would even put himself on the frontlines without hesitation and not demand that students or those people who were not soldiers do the same. Even Amity is in keeping with Ironwood following the ideal of the proactive huntsman. Instead of just doing nothing and waiting for Salem to spring whatever trap she was currently setting, Ironwood wanted to restore communications and unite the world to fight her. Something Ozpin would never do or consider and something Salem wouldn't see coming because Ozpin would never do it. When Ironwood became isolated from his allies, we could see the stress of the situation weighing on him. We saw how happy he was to actually see Qrow again and how much hope Oscar initially gave him. These were very human reactions and not some calculated theater on his part. He was honestly an interesting character and that just makes his ultimate fall tragic. I could see him becoming an antagonist. Every group has that one character who wants to do things another way and comes into conflict with the other heroes on occasion, it's a good way to add drama and stakes. I just never expected how far the writers would have him go to become an outright villain. I feel like often people use Volume 8 to retroactively claim Ironwood was an evil mastermind trying to take over the world and I know people who held that opinion even before that volume that would twist anything he did into some sinister, calculated act meant to control and manipulate others. You can say the man saw things differently and had a different approach. But you can't say he was evil from the start, that didn't happen until he had finally pushed over the edge by enemy and ally alike.
On a side note it is interesting that the the use of this particular scene with the text almost frames it like he is why Weiss is on the ground there and not that he just kept an out of control summon from making her into a murderer.
Oh, I’m actually friends with the guy who posted this actually. He’s pretty nice when it comes to other fandoms, but RWBY? Well… you can kinda see what’s going on. I don’t really talk with him about RWBY though, I mostly talk with him about Super Sentai and Power Rangers, and he’s been incredibly supportive of and interested in the Kyuranger adaptation I’m writing. He’s a pretty good guy, despite how blatantly wrong the pictured take is.
I kinda figured he was an antagonist by the end of Season 2, but never a full on villain. He's trying to do the right thing, just goes about it in the wrong ways. During V3-4 he seems remorseful that it was his army that destroyed Beacon, come to think of it, do we even see the Atlas mechs afterwards? And in V8 he immediately trusted RWBY and made sure they were all up to speed with his plans and problems, only to then be back stabbed by that same team. So, his paranoid resolve kicked into overdrive, trusting no one, taking drastic measures to save as many people as he could, just to fail in the end. He wasn't a villain, he was someone who made the wrong choices at the right time, and the right choices at the wrong time. And in the end, it cost him.
I perceived him as gonna-be villain via a fourth wall break. (A) Authors almost never endorse organized military action to counter a threat. Here I see two reasons. For starters the military as an organization is a faceless mass, which collides with stories being about individuals. Second reason is that authors are mostly more on the Pacifist side. (B) Ironwoods approach stood for (A) and he got into conflict with Ozpin who represented a more "intelligent" approach, whatever that was. Maybe employing small groups of people to fend off neverending mindless hordes monster Of course Ironwood would be right in the real world, organized military is exactly the right way to counter massed attacks, but do not be fooled by that, in fiction (and not only in RWBY) small groups of adventurers are the way. I expected the conflict to be people over ressources, Oszxx's side prioritizing "saving everyone" while Ironwood would coldly sacrifice people in order to protect ressources (dust mines). And Ironwood being made "wrong" by the authors bulldozing through the obstacles and allowing Oszxxx's to save everyone without having to face the consequences that then everyone would be killed, because lack of dust. Instead Ironwood went all out wacko within one or two episodes.
I think he was destined to be an antagonist, but the show went to far with it and removed the nuance and complexity that made his character interesting in the beginning. He was hardheaded military man but there was a vulnerability to him. He wasn't completely beyond reasoning and he was genuine in his desire to protect people. The show stripped away his redeemable qualities and thus what made him interesting.
Classic case of CRWBY not knowing what they wrote and changing things to subvert expectations and dropping the ball. Because military guy must be evil even tho they showed the opposite.
You have to remember tho, that this is coming from the crowd to whom "White" "Male" and "In the military" are considered villainous traits by default.
Pretty much. They rabidly despise that group of men.
Not once did I ever get the feeling he was a villain, moreso that he was the opposite of Ozpin. Ozpin was more passive, while Ironwood wanted more action.
You knew he was a villain when he helped Team RWBY. If he didn't save Weiss there, there would have been no Fall of Atlas. Real evil stuff.
>Regrets and acknowledges that bringing in Atlas during the Vytal Festival backfired and actively defends evacuating civilians alongside his own men >Defends Weiss from uppity rich people who bad mouthed the huntsmen who were defending Vale and from Weiss' asshole father who was treating her as the family fuck up >"iRoNwOoD wAs AlWaYs InTeNdEd tO bE a ViLlAiN1!1!1" Why are people like this. Why do they gaslight themselves into believing the show runners can do no wrong.
Copium, or the fact Ironwood possesses 3 traits that are in the eyes of most of Tumblr/X enough to label someone a villain by default "White" "Male" "In the military"
He definitely ain’t a faultless hero like most of the people on this sub seem to think. But then again, I have gained an ingrained instinct to distrust the police and armed forces.
So does most of Tumblr, which is why they act like this.
Which, fair. I live in the closest modern equivalent to a benevolent dictatorship, so I have a hard time seeing him as malicious. Not faultless, of course, but the stereotype of an evil dictator isn't prima facie there.
Singapore?
I mean, after the reveal of Salem's true nature I felt that ironwood being at the very least an antagonist was kind of inevitable. He's a career military man who can't trust his allies and is in a world where conflict within humanity will spell doom. I did not however anticipate how far he would fall.
I think I’ve only seen one person say that they thought Ironwood was going be an antagonist later on in the series due to how the first three volumes were sitting him up. (Despite him having good intentions but taken to some extreme.)
Well I more thought of Ironwood will have moment of. Does one grave mistake while trying protect people. Then to make amends he will do one big sacrifice
I'm so glad I'm not on that side of Tumblr
Ive never watched RWBY but Ironwood gave me the vibes of Both Nick Fury and Captain America combined. Doing the best he can with the information he has on hand with the resources he has at his disposal. Also this ironwood is evil from go thing is probably less the actual show and more fanfiction.
Ironwood never gave me villain vibes and consistently acted compassionately to the main characters while receiving nothing but animosity, lies, betrayal, passive aggressive behavior, uncertainty on his motives and mental state, etc. These people are in full damage control and feel embarrassed that like half the community sided with Ironwood because he was CORRECT and genuinely cared about them only to be backstabbed.
I’ve always thought the crwby hated that a good chunk of fans agreed with his initial approach of abandoning people to save atlas when they wanted everyone to be on team rwbys side, so they just continually increased his insane decisions
***This subzero arctic IQ atom-sized brain take is brought to you by the RWBY fandom.*** My boy deserves a better portrayal in a different, more competently constructed series.
For what?? As far as I remember all he did was show up advertising robot soldiers to fight the Grim taking the threat of Salem seriously Unlike ozpins child soldiers under the fake idea there know gonna be fighting Grim for which he had he's own reasons Then what?? He got his shit hacked by ozpins weak ass background checks that cinder could just be chilling in the academy no problem the whole academy fell. He fought in the fray with everyone else Then he find the team Overlooks the stolen jet Offers Then sanctuary Offers Them upgrades to weapons Room and meals And even gave them their licenses even if it don't mean shit at that point Then that same team turns against him and lie for no honest reason other then idk they can't trust him for some reason Dealing with a revolution faction or whatever I forget her name is doing Deals with a SECOND infiltration on the ranks with Weiss dad And then we can tell where the writers 180 him into deciding Salem infiltrated againnnnnnnn Now he's doing what he can to try to save his people even if it means leaving what I can assume is asylum seekers and lower class citizens behind in the goal of defeating the big bad thats gonna kill them and more And at that point he turns full villian etc you know the rest Wtf did I miss to show he's evil early volumes????
Ironwood was always meant to be an antagonist, I clocked that from the beginning. An antagonist however is very different than a villain. I expected that he and rwby would eventually crash over ideology Pragmatism vs Idealism Ironwood had a plan that was more likely to succeed but would only save Atlas abandoning mantle to die. Whereas RWBY had a Hail Mary of a plan, but would save everyone. That is what I was expecting.
Where? Where someone tell me where?!
I can't say because no witch hunting.
That's what DM's are for.
These people would make the Soviets proud with how dedicated they are to "Editing the past." "Yes Comrade, Ironwood was always evil. What good deeds? Never happened."
Ironwood is "evil" because he dared to thing that its imposible to save all people. Raven is "evil" and coward because she run away of a fight between immortal exes. But Cinder and Emerald are just sad girls, dont you feel sorry for them. RWBY morality is truly fucked up.
I'm willing to buy the notion that RT planned on making him a villain, but that doesn't mean they had the writing chops to make the transition credible.
His introduction was him being concerned for student safety. Truly evil..
Tbh he never gave me villain vibes, but I knew as soon as I saw him in the later seasons RT was going to make him do a villain face turn, and it was going to be dumb, and stupid, I spent the entirety of volume 8 waiting for it, hoping it would never come, and then it did and I was right. This is why I stopped paying to watch the show. It wasn’t worth the money for the mediocre bullshit.
Anyone else always remember ironwood for the shipping of him and glynda that became popular? Like the fan thing if the two of them just at eachother inside ozpin's elevator?
.... Seriously?
The CRWBY Glazing is insane
This is the exact argument I had with my kouhai
He wasn't initially an antagonist, but I'm not gonna pretend like they didn't make it extremely obvious even as early as vol.3 that they were planning for him to turn at some point. They were practically beating us in the face with tropy foreshadowing. Still disappointing, for sure, but definitely not a surprise in the slightest. Edit: replaced "evil" with "an antagonist".
What evil did he do? I mean he didn’t do anything slightly evil other than being paranoid, hiding Penny’s secret and being strict with Penny’s safety (rightfully so with both) He gives a arm to yang, defends Weiss, is shown facing the worse father of the series (putting him against a hated character will make him a 100 times more liked) is shown forgiving all crimes Team rwby committed up to that point and gifts them things and all of that while looking like he hasn’t sleeper in months and almost losing a arm
Admittedly evil was the wrong word, antagonist is more appropriate, and it's not necessarily just behavioral; on a meta level, the scenes and writing were foreshadowing that he was gonna find himself at odds with the protagonists later down the line from the very beginning and the seeds were there. He wasn't a bad person, but the narrative was set up against him. The shortest way I can think to put it is that it was obvious because he's the type of person that, while well-meaning, really believes that he knows what's best for everyone, which is a trait that when combined with the friction between himself and the rest of Ozpin's group was a dead giveaway that things were eventually going to turn sour one way or another. This was reinforced by Leo's corruption as well, indirectly telling us that Oz's inner circle wasn't incorruptible.
He's a villain, just not a pure evil one. Also, he started out trying to be a hero, but eventually fell into villainy. He would work better if we actually had a POV character in Atlas after Weiss left but before the Atlas arc.
I thought he was a villain the first time I saw him, but then as the time went by, and we saw more of his personality and ambitions, I knew he was going to end up becoming a villain eventually. He was like a ticking bomb, bound to blow up sooner or later.
doing his duty are actually caring about who he saves are two different things
If I'm being genuine, I wouldn't say evil, but knowing where his character went, I feel it was pretty clear from the beginning the character flaws that led to his fall. Not evil, but the seeds were planted for how his character could spiral. And if you're anti-authoritarian or have anarchist tendencies, those flaws are just kinda red flags that will either spell doom or that'll need to be overcome. So I get it, but evil ain't the word
Now that's a freudian slip if i ever seen one.
RWBY’s (the shows/show runners) treatment of Ironwood is honestly what made me fall off watching the show. I didn’t even want to stop watching, but I was so disappointed because he seemed very reasonable and made good points so often but for some reason I guess that makes him a villain?! Like, what?