Just a big RWBY fan

Of all the themes of the Atlas arc, Fixing RWBY tries to retain this theme the most. To say it fails to have the same impact as canon is an understatement

In canon, Ruby lies to Ironwood about the lamp, about why they're no longer in contact with Oz, and they lie by omission of what they learned in The Lost Fable. A lot of (stupid) people think this is bad writing due to their hypocrisy about them getting mad about Oz's own lies and secrets, but this is intentional

Until The Lost Fable, the main cast were the ignorant ones being lied to, and they rather reasonably retaliated. Oz lied to them and hundreds of people over the millennia about their mission,he gave them a mission under false pretenses, hiding how they're fighting an invincible enemy that can't die

Now they're on the other side of the dynamic, the ones who hold all the secrets. They're learning what it's been like for Ozpin all this time, the weight and guilt of lying to people who trust you. They come to outright apologize to him near the end of V8 for this exact reason

FRWBY takes this in a strange direction. Ruby still lies about the lamp and The Lost Fable, but tells Ironwood that Roman and Oz had a falling out which is why he isn't around, which is pretty true. And somehow, still no idea why it's never explained, Ironwood is already aware of Salem's immortality before they even arrived in Atlas. This immediately reduces the intentional messiness of their situation in canon, Ruby is hiding a lot less than canon did. She's basically just hiding that the lamp still has a question it can answer and that Oz and Salem were exes

Truth is a theme so important to the Atlas arc's narrative that we get introduced to a living lie detector in Robyn Hill. If a semblance is an in-universe reflection of that person's soul like the characters themselves debate, then it means knowing the truth is so important to Robyn as a person that her very soul gave her the means to easily confirm it

In Fixing RWBY Robyn's semblance doesn't exist period. Not only does she never bring it up as an option, according to Ironwood convincing her of the truth of Salem and Amity would be too hard. This is because Celtic Phoenix is a coward and a hack that realized her semblance would make it impossible to tell the story he wanted to tell for the Atlas arc, so he deleted it entirely instead of try to work with it in mind. To my memory Robyn and Velvet are the only FRWBY characters that had their semblances erased from canon. Velvet because she doesn't have Anesidora in this rewrite, and Robyn because her being a living lie detector would make it too hard for Cinder to trick her

On that topic, Cinder lies to Robyn about her being a member of the White Fang, wearing clawed gloves that make her look like a faunus to sell the lie. Due to Robyn's semblance not existing in this continuity and having ties to the White Fang, which is somehow how she got elected to the council, she blindly believes Cinder and strikes a deal with her during a food shortage Watts started. This has a domino effect that will lead to Watts being able to hack Atlas' security grids and Robyn getting assassinated

In canon after Robyn got an arrest warrant put on her, Blake REALLY doesn't want to do this because arresting a huntress that's just trying to help people while being ignorant about what's going on just feels weong. So she and Yang tell her about Amity's existence, and this ends up being helpful in the long term. While secrecy has its advantages, you can't build trust by telling people nothing. Robyn thought Ironwood's secrets were purely for his own gain, but learning about Amity caused her to realize he has the world's best interest at heart and tries to gently push him to tell his secrets to the people. If she was ignorant of Amity she would have been far more aggressive and confrontational at Ironwood than she ended up being

In FRWBY, nothing resembling this happens at all. RWBY suggest telling Robyn about Amity but Ironwood shuts it down because according to him "it would be too hard to convince her of the truth," and "politicians twisting the truth is in their nature." They never even attempt to tell her because of this

For most of FRWBYV7 Penny is hiding the fact that she has almost none of her old memories due to her death at Amity destroying her memory drive. It doesn't take much prompting from Ruby once she confronts her on avoiding her

In canon, Ironwood's secrecy was actively harming his position with other people. To the world at large it looked like he was playing at dictator and harming Atlas for zero reason, and as a result he's burned away any trust and bridges he once had with anybody else. This reaches a head when it looks like Atlas shut off Mantle's power due to Watts hacking the grids, causing a citywide riot and an army of grimm to invade

However, after being encouraged by Ruby and Oscar to finally tell the council the truth of why he's doing this, he's able to work with Robyn to calm down the riots. On top of this he was able to weaponize the truth to his advantage, announcing Amity's existence to the public in order to smoke out Watts. He was able to turn his own paranoid worries of people learning about Amity entirely on its head by admitting its existence on his own terms

FRWBY retains Ironwood's secrecy hurting him. However, Ironwood tells the Atlas council the partial truth entirely of his own volition, with nobody prompting him to do so but the council. Vaguely gesturing at Amity's existence as the weapon he plans to destroy the grimm with, but no mention of Salem or the specifics of how Amity will work. The only reason he's telling them the truth is as a pretense justify himself becoming dictator of Atlas since the council is planning to vote him out of the government. Due to nobody in the main cast except Weiss and Qrow being at this council meeting, nobody encourages Ironwood to tell everything so he doesn't

As a result of Ironwood retaining his secrecy on Amity, he has to sit on his ass and wait for Watts to make the first move. When Watts finds out about Amity by hacking its files, Pietro traces the hack and tells Ironwood about this so he heads there

Unlike Ozpin, in canon RWBYJNRQO are willing to tell Ironwood the truth once they feel it's appropriate. Once Ironwood started being open about his Amity plans, they felt it appropriate to tell him what they've been hiding. Ozpin would rather die again than have anybody learn what he's been hiding, as he's been burned by the experience of telling others his secrets multiple times

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, in FRWBY they never tell Ironwood about what they've been hiding. He learns about RWBY lying about the lamp through Watts since he's been spying on them admitting their lies, and he learns about The Lost Fable through Salem when her Seer pops

In canon, part of why Ironwood turns against the main cast is because they lied to him at all, even though they came clean entirely of their own volition. He also considers Blake and Yang telling Robyn about Amity to be another betrayal, even though that ended up helping more than hurting. Ironwood doesn't care. They lied and told his secrets regardless of any other context, so he can't trust them

In FRWBY, when it looks like Ruby betrays him due to Neo disguising herself as her, he confronts Ruby at Atlas' vault. Due to Ruby lying and never admitting the truth to him, and the events at the volume's climax making her look like a traitor, Ironwood starts making some wild accusations against her. He assumes that she's been lying to him about literally everything. That Roman isn't Oz, that she's actually working for him or Salem, and that she's been lying and using him from the moment they first met. She tries to get him to see reason, but he doesn't listen and shoots her off Atlas just like Oscar in canon

Even the villains can change as they learn the truth in Volume 8. Emerald and Mercury argue about sticking with Salem, to which Tyrian comes in. He explains that Salem wants to destroy the world, which is accurate if Oz's own assessments are true, and if they couldn't tell that from the start they must be out of their minds. After this Emerald defects from Salem and joins the heroes, and she and Mercury share a look that implies he'll eventually do the same

Hazel has been radicalized against Ozpin to the point that he considers him attacking "children" like Nora to be Oz's sins for hiding behind them. And yet all he needs to turn against Salem after being told of her motives by Oz, is to see Jinn. A being that can answer any question. He didn't even need to ask her anything, just seeing her confirmed that Oz has been telling the truth to him. He turns on Salem, fights her, and sacrifices himself so that Ozcar could set off the cane nuke without interruption

Only time will tell how FRWBYV8 handles this

As a result of Atlas' military culture, the Ace-Ops will do whatever Ironwood says for no other reason than his authority as the general of Atlas' army. They go from allies of the main cast protecting Mantle to enemies abandoning the poorer city because Ironwood said so. Elm even considers RWBY not going along with Ironwood to be betraying them. Blake rightfully calls out how they're betraying the people they're sworn to protect due to their blind loyalty to Ironwood, and Yang taunts them multiple times about "just following orders," throwing their blind loyalty back in their face

When Clover sees the arrest warrant for Qrow, he immediately tries to detain him. He doesn't stop and think why Ironwood made the warrant, he doesn't consider it might be a mistake, he doesn't think that since Qrow has been by his side all night he hasn't done anything to warrant an arrest. He sees the warrant, he follows orders. He even goes so far as to entirely focus on Qrow when Tyrian enters fray despite the faunus being by far the more dangerous man

According to Clover, he feels that he owes Ironwood his life. And for his reckless actions from that blind loyalty, that's exactly what he loses. Tyrian kills him. If he had worked with Qrow to detain Tyrian then at worst Qrow would have KO'd him or knocked him around. But he didn't do that, Ironwood's orders took priority

Winter hates Ironwood abandoning Mantle just as much as Penny, but unlike Penny she has that Atlas military culture ingrained in her. Unlike the Ace-Ops as well, Winter gives an actual reason for going along with the plan. She rationalizes Ironwood's decision as a necessary sacrifice thinking of the "greater good" of humanity. Unlike the Ace-Ops, Winter can still actually think for herself even if it's in service of Ironwood's agendas

Throughout Volume 8 we see Winter grapple with her cognitive dissonance. After basically every decision Ironwood makes in the volume we see Winter's growing doubts over the course of the volume's runtime etched in her face and body language. We even see through Ren's evolved semblance that she has by far the most complicated emotions out of everybody in the Bullhead

Winter is even able to take advantage of the Ace-Ops' strict following orders by chain of command. When YJR plan to head into Monstra Harriet is furious at Winter agreeing due to them being "traitors and fugitives." All Winter has to do is say "I outrank you" to make her shut up even though she's absolutely livid at this, and she follows along

While we don't see Marrow's own doubts as much, we're still given multiple scenes of them. He hates sending YJR on a suicide mission of going into Monstra while they prepare to shove a bomb down its throat, and has clear moral problems with sending FNKI on the frontlines

This all comes to a head when Ironwood decides to bomb Mantle. Marrow argues with the rest of the Ace-Ops. Elm thinks he isn't serious, Vine thinks the threat is worth it if it forces the main cast to "see reason," and Harriet doesn't care. Hearing that Ironwood was serious and plans to follow through with that threat if the heroes don't comply is the last straw.

Marrow considers this a complete betrayal of his principals, and he calls out that the Ace-Ops don't believe in anything other than the chain of command if they're playing along with this plan to bomb Mantle. They went from saving Mantle's people two days ago, to abandoning said people, to going along with annihilating an entire city's civilian population with a military grade explosive because Ironwood ordered it. As the song War points out, they're "Just a mindless weapon pointed at an enemy." Marrow has had enough and abandons the Ace-Ops, and Ironwood attempting to execute him finally pushes Winter to make moves against him

Hell Harriet attempts to bomb Mantle herself out of nothing but "the principal of it," out of "loyalty." She pays for this with Vine's life. While Watts did activate the bomb, Harriet's the one who armed it, she got her teammate and friend killed for nothing, and she'll have to live with the consequences of that for the rest of her life

Emerald is dealing with her own blind loyalty issues over the series' runtime. Despite clearly being uncomfortable with everything to do with Salem, Emerald sticks by her because Cinder is the only person she ever saw as family. She doesn't care about Salem or her cause at all, she's only there from her own loyalty to Cinder. However, her own blind loyalties have already been challenged before Volume 8 even started. Mercury calls out her "never having a mommy," and how Cinder doesn't care about either of them beyond their usefulness

In comes Volume 8 and it becomes increasingly, blatantly clear to Emerald that Cinder doesn't care. Between this, her own moral problems with all this being shown as early as the Fall of Beacon, and learning that Salem plans to destroy the world from Tyrian, she deserts Salem

An important thing to note is that when these three decide to finally act on their own thoughts instead of mindlessly following somebody else, they prove instrumental in helping the main cast. Emerald disarms Ironwood making him much easier to handle. Winter gives a lot of support in the fight against Ironwood and inflicts the finishing blow. Marrow stops the Ace-Ops before they can even start a fight with Qrow and Robyn

Fixing RWBY takes this idea in a strange direction

According to Ironwood Atlas' culture of suppressing individual expression is "greatly exaggerated." This immediately puts this theme into auestion because a nation with a strong military culture still allowing individual expression is an odd mix

Throughout Volume 7, RWBYJNR repeatedly show doubts on if they're doing enough for the world or are just being Ironwood's mindless drones. Meanwhile FNCP are fully secure in what they're doing as said mindless drones

Winter is especially odd here because she seems to have doubts on Ironwood before V7 even started. She's been leaking confidential intel about him to Robyn for awhile, and she shows doubts on Ironwood much earlier than she did in canon

When the arrest warrant is given out on RWBY, nobody in Strike Team 32 seems to really question it. Flynt and Neon show some doubts but they tell the bees to just play along and get arrested so they can sort things out later. Ciel seems to view this as an excuse to kill/detain Ruby due to hating how she's involved in Penny's life and "destroying" it. Clover doesn't tell Qrow about the warrant at all as they're detaining Tyrian until Ruby calls Qrow

Winter and Penny never voice their thoughts on this at all. This is ESPECIALLY baffling because Penny explicitly has feelings of trust in Ruby despite her lack of memories, and Winter has doubts on Ironwood throughout V7. If anyone should show doubts on Ruby "betraying" Ironwood it would be them. Instead we get nothing

In canon, the Ace-Ops' and Winter's blind loyalty to Ironwood gets them punished by the narrative. The Ace-Ops get defeated, Clover dies, and Winter doesn't become the next maiden until after she turns her back on Ironwood

In FRWBY, that loyalty gets rewarded. FNC annihilates WBY with zero difficulty because they start their fight with an ambush and pick off the main cast one by one in 3v1 ganks. You would think that WBY's doubts and FNC's internal security would play into the battle but no. They just win because they used a "smart" tactic. Clover doesn't focus entirely on Qrow when Tyrian joins the fight so he survives unlike canon. Penny who was always Ironwood's planned maiden gets the power just like canon

A lot of people give Ironwood shit for having Watts hack Penny, thinking he's stupid for trusting him to do this. For one thing he has Watts at gunpoint, if Watts does anything out of line without being extremely sneaky about it he knows he could get gunned down. But far more importantly, this action is the climax of this theme Ironwood and Penny share. Ironwood is forcing Watts to do what he wants so that he can force Penny to do what he wants, it's a deeply thematic action that ties into their character arcs. Ironwood's controlling tendencies hit such an apex that he wants to strip Penny of her ability to act on her own will entirely. He wants that vault opened yesterday and by the Brothers he'll get it NOW, methods be damned

According to Watts, he did exactly what Ironwood wanted and there's nothing to suggest he's lying. The orders Ironwood wanted? Make Penny open the vault and then "self-terminate," probably gambling on the maiden powers transferring to Winter, assuming the thought even crossed his mind. A complete violation of Penny's individuality and personhood

The fact that Ironwood decided to hack Penny also shows that even before deciding to bomb Mantle he's hit a turning point that's beyond redemption. He's the very person that signed off on the aura transfer technology, he once believed in the idea of a protector with a soul. Him deciding to hack her, to strip her of her free will to force her to obey him and then make her kill herself, is him betraying and throwing away the very ideals he once held. His paranoia, his belief that he needs to be as ruthless and monstrous as he perceives Salem to be, and most importantly his need to control everything by any means necessary now supersedes anything resembling the compassion and heart he once had

FRWBY's hack completely misses all of this. She gets hacked in the Beacon arc by one of Watts' viruses because doing so would be a "smarter, more complex" plan. Because it's the villains acting entirely on their own will, where being a control freak is far from integral to CEMNW as characters, this is so limp and weak compared to what we got in canon

The funny thing about hacking Penny in the Beacon arc is that it irreparably screwed Celtic in FRWBYV8. If he hacks Penny again due to Watts choosing to screw over Ironwood it's repetitive because we already have Penny getting hacked for similar reasons. If he has Ironwood order she get hacked for some reason then it completely misses the point of the original because Celtic threw away Penny's theme of lacking control in the Atlas arc, and Ironwood's controlling tendencies are downplayed in FRWBY compared to canon. If he doesn't hack her, it's another thing that makes Fixing RWBY increasingly unrecognizable from canon for no reason, a damning statement on a so-called fix fic

Fixing RWBY completely butchered this aspect of Penny's character

Penny isn't allowed to out herself as a robot in the Beacon era because Ironwood believes that the world isn't ready for that information yet

In Volume 2 Ironwood forbade her from even speaking to her friends at Beacon in retaliation for her going off on her own

In Volume 3 Penny is planning to disobey Ironwood and stay at Beacon, to be with the people she cares about. Unfortunately, CEM had other plans. They rig the Vytal matches so that Pyrrha would be her opponent, and Emerald makes her hallucinate causing her to push her semblance to full power killing Penny in the process

FRWBY keeps this basically unchanged, although Penny gets hacked when fighting Pyrrha in addition to that

Come the Atlas arc and Penny has been rebuilt stronger than ever and is now the Protector of Mantle. While she takes a lot of pride in her duty as Protector, and she clearly wants to keep the people safe, due to Ironwood's lack of care for Mantle and the massive hole in its defenses she's on constant active duty. Penny is overjoyed at RWBYJNR arriving in Atlas in part because she can be with people that she cares about again. Her job as Protector of Mantle leaves her so busy she "doesn't have time for friends" according to Ironwood

FRWBY's version of the Atlas arc is where things start getting weird. While Penny is very busy in FRWBY as well, for one thing she's part of a dedicated team now, Strike Team 32 with Flynt Neon and Ciel as her partners and Clover as the leader. This entirely takes away from her being alone and "having no time for friends" that she had in canon

On top of this, Penny "being busy" is due to her actively avoiding spending time with Ruby. She's doing this out of fear of breaking their relationship because when she died at Amity her memory drive was destroyed, leaving her with almost none of her memories. In canon she basically has no choice but to avoid her old teammates and friends due to her duty as Protector of Mantle. In FRWBY, her avoiding Ruby is entirely her own choice

During the Atlas council meeting, Ironwood tries to appease the council's concerns about Penny by saying "Penny is under my complete control," something that Penny is clearly uncomfortable with and ends up being some devious foreshadowing for V8

Due to Penny not being framed for Tyrian's murders in this continuity due to the cut election plot, Penny isn't even at the Atlas council meeting. We also never get any sort of equivalent of Ironwood's statement either

While Penny becoming the Winter Maiden is for the best as we obviously don't want Cinder or Ironwood to obtain the power, she never wanted this power. On top of this her gaining the maiden powers and leaving Ironwood ends up putting a literal target the size of Atlas on her back which would begin a domino effect of choices that would end in her demise

In FRWBY Penny was Ironwood's choice for maidenhood from the start. She shows no moral problems with Fria's treatment, no doubts on if she should or even can receive the power, no feeling like she's trapped by her position into taking the power. Nothing

In Volume 8 we're even shown that Pietro can take full control of her, which he does to access the Atlas terminal. While he would obviously never do this without her consent, the fact that this feature was built into her is a worrying sign and once again plays into this theme. Penny even shows a lot of hesitancy right before this happens, she's clearly uncomfortable with it but knows this needs to happen

Throughout Volume 8 Penny repeats a sentiment similar to "I guess we all have things we do not wish to do that we must." When she gives ideas to Pietro, she gets shot down by him multiple times due to him worrying so much of her safety. Or other people will bring up the idea of Penny always being told what to do. All of these play into this theme

I won't be surprised when Celtic inevitably doesn't include anything resembling any of this material in V8. Or if he does include it it'll be out of nowhere and weaker than canon since he dropped this aspect of her character for V7

On one side of this coin we have Ironwood, a man driven by paranoia that NEEDS everything to go exactly as he wants it or it's not good enough, and he won't have it any other way. In other words he's a control freak, and these tendencies only get worse as the series goes on

He brought an army to Vale as a show of force to try intimidating the Fang and other criminals into submission. He stabbed Oz in the back so that he could be head of Amity's security, thinking that it's for the best he be in charge

By having two of the five seats in Atlas' council he has disproportionate power and it would take the entire rest of the council to vote against him to say no to his policies. In Volume 4 he outright says that if Oz just did whatever he said the Fall if Beacon wouldn't have happened which is factually false since it was the robots HE wanted to show off getting hacked that turned the tide of the Fall into a truly unwinnable situation

He started a Dust embrargo due to fearing that Salem would take the resources for her own purposes, something that she isn't even hurt by. He then closed the borders trying to keep her faction out of Atlas which doesn't even work with with how easily they all slip in

In Volume 7 he turned Mantle into a police surveillance state so that he could keep an eye out for Salem's agents and any potential dissent against Atlas. On top of this he completely isolates Fria so that he could guarantee that her maiden powers would transfer to Winter. In other words controlling the next maiden and guaranteeing that she'll be his loyal soldier

He refuses to tell anybody anything about Amity or Salem outside of his inner circle and immediate allies until the big planned announcement, fearing that telling anybody else would leak this secret of Amity before it's done. When Robyn rightfully takes back the resources meant for Mantle that he's illegally repurposing, he decides to have RWBYJNR and the Ace-Ops arrest her rather than bend even a little bit on telling her what's happening. Jacques and the Atlas council rightfully point out that he's burned away any trust he had due to his policies and need for absolute secrecy. Ironwood needs complete control over the information on Amity's existence even when his secrecy hurts him

Ironwood's treatment of Penny ties incredibly heavily into this theme, refusing to allow her choices that she'd rather make. Either "for her own good" or the good of others. More for on this in her part

When he realizes that someone told Robyn about Amity, he considers it a betrayal of loyalty. Loyalty to him and his decisions, rather than a violation of trust or people trying to navigate a messy situation that they didn't agree with his approach. When RWBY stands against his decision to leave Mantle to die, rather than try to talk things out he puts out an arrest warrant on them JNR and Qrow because how DARE they not mindlessly go along with his plan. When Oscar tries to talk him out of the plan, he decides he's had enough of people disagreeing with him and literally shoots him off of Atlas

A lot of people consider Ironwood shooting Sleet to be character assassination so Volume 8 and CRWBY are bad because of this. Clearly, these people are stupid. He just tried to kill Oscar in cold blood hours ago for the crime of trying to change his mind, he was being entirely non-hostile or confrontational. Shooting Sleet also sends a clear message to everybody in that room, reminder that Winter and the Ace-Ops are there as well. The message being to not do or say ANYTHING that goes against his decisions, he is DONE hearing any contrary opinions. He is in control of Atlas now, and if you dare do anything against that then this is what will happen to you

FRWBY mostly retained this stuff in V2-4, but tries to sanitize Ironwood of this flaw in the Atlas arc. Despite this it still ends up retaining this theme in a strange way

Ironwood in FRWBY is considering becoming the Architect of Atlas, which would make him its dictator. Something he eventually follows through on. If anything embodies being in control of something, being dictator of a nation would do it. But it's so blatant compared to canon it's kinda laughable. In episode 2 of the Atlas arc FRWBY Ironwood's spelling out that he's going to become a dictator, it's so much less subtle and has so much less dread and tension on if the heroes can convince him away from his darker impulses

He doesn't turn Mantle into a police surveillance state until after he decides to go through on becoming dictator 2/3rds through Volume 7

He gets furious at Robyn for stealing from a Schnee supply ship, but doesn't try to get her arrested unless she's caught doing something like that again. According to him his position of having two seats on the Atlas council makes his orders and authority absolute unless the entire council votes against him. This is an incredibly strange thing in regards to this theme

On one hand he retains his canon disproportionate power and control over the Atlas council. On the other, he seriously doesn't try to arrest Robyn for this? He didn't know that she and the Happy Huntresses were looting from the ship he just sent RWBY there to investigate. But after learning she did that and abused her authority, he just yells at her and gets mad?

Any and all dynamics Ironwood had for his controlling tendencies of Penny in the Atlas arc are removed entirely

Celtic Phoenix significantly changed things about Penny Polendina

She first appears about halfway through FRWBY Volume 1 rather than the very end, and she gets a few extra slice of life scenes in Volume 2. I won't exactly complain about more Penny, but this can only work with Celtic's bullshit infinite time money and hindsight scenario

Volume 3 is where her real changes start

During the FRWBY Vytal festival, Penny has an encounter with Pyrrha's semblance that causes her to start glitching out from the damage done to her circuitry. She goes to one of the Atlas' ships to get repaired, which leaves her open to get hacked by Neo using one of Watts' viruses

During Penny's fight with Pyrrha, the virus implanted in her forces her to try killing Pyrrha. She dies exactly like canon anyway, Emerald making Pyrrha hallucinate included

I hate this. A lot. FRWBYV3 aired in July 2019. Canon V7 started in November of the same year, so Celtic had no way of knowing about Penny getting hacked, meaning in hindsight he screwed himself over. Ironic considering how much Celtic relies on hindsight to cushion himself and pat himself on the back as better than CRWBY

If Penny gets hacked again in FRWBYV8, not only would it be redundant due to her first hack, but if he doesn't then it would be yet again another thing that makes FRWBY increasingly unrecognizable from canon. Celtic unwittingly put himself in a damned if you do damned if you don't situation

Far more importantly though, this hack is a complete thematic misfire. Penny's central motif is a lack of control in her life as others essentially make decisions for her. Her canonical hack is the apex of this theme as Ironwood the control freak robs her of her agency entirely

Now you could argue that Watts hacking Penny in FRWBY stems from bitter feelings since he made the aura transfer technology in this universe, but no. Again, FRWBYV3 ended before canon V7 started, Celtic had no way to know about Watts' canonical backstory and this would be over SIX YEARS before he would finally write down and change Watts' backstory from canon. So no, I'm not giving him a pass for this

I haven't seen any of his reviews, but between Celtic's obsession with things being "smart, pragmatic, or logical" and him using hindsight to "better plan out" FRWBY tells me that he's the kind of person that hates stories that don't have every major beat planned from the start and thinks it's bad writing. It's not one to one but there's significant overlap in that venn diagram in my experience. It doesn't inherently bother me when a story isn't planned super long term. But by his very own metric Celtic can go fuck himself for not planning this shit, at best this is a happy accident that fell into his lap

In FRWBYV7, Penny in addition to being the Protector of Mantle is part of Strike Team 32, Celtic's stand-in for the Ace-Ops since he wrote them out of the story. THIS is a complete misfire as well. Penny in canon and FRWBY is too individualistic to just be part of Ironwood's elite squad of yes-men. In canon she actively fights against the notion that you should suppress your emotions in order to be a better soldier, ideologically she's far closer to the main cast than she is to Atlas

Even from a character design standpoint, Penny and the rest of Strike Team 32 doesn't fit as Ironwood's soldiers. The Ace-Ops wear white and dark blue outfits with red and black accents, the same as Ironwood which is a visual hint of who they'll side with when he turns against the main cast. In canon and FRWBY, Penny's color scheme is nothing like the Ace-Ops. And yet, Penny in FRWBY stays fully loyal to Ironwood even at the end of the volume

In canon Pietro leaves breadcrumbs for the audience of Penny's return since he knows about team RWBY through his daughter. The main cast doesn't really know anyone else in Atlas, so who could it be but Penny? Penny kills all the remaining Sabyrs that the main cast were fighting, and once she realizes that Ruby's right in front of her she goes for a big tackle hug

Our first scene of FRWBY Penny in the Atlas arc is her killing a giant crab grimm in one blast of her lasers that's about to kill Ruby. After processing that she's back Ruby runs up to give Penny a big tackle hug giving us a big happy reunion. No sign of Pietro here. Rather strangely, when RWBYJNRQRN get arrested by Strike Team 32 Penny just plays along with it. The fuck?

Penny is Ironwood's choice to become the next winter maiden, completely isolating Fria just like canon. Come the end of the volume and that's exactly what happens

The fuck? Winter not becoming the next maiden by Ironwood's plan wasn't a mistake in canon's writing. Isolating Fria to try and force who the next maiden will be is a morally bankrupt method of trying to obtain the power, and Fria couldn't even remember Winter before her death but could remember the mission given to pass on the power. Penny in canon forged a brief but genuine connection to her, which is why she received the power which plays into the themes of the Atlas arc. Having her be the planned maiden and have Ironwood's plan go off without a hitch completely misses the point of what the original's going for

If anything Winter should be the one to receive the maiden powers at the end of the volume given how she's the one who has doubts of Ironwood a LOT earlier than she does in canon. Celtic seems to have flipped their roles in respect to their loyalties to Ironwood

During a political rally Robyn's hosting RWBY and FNCP work together as bodyguards. Ruby and Penny have a heart to heart about being happy to reunite, and yet Penny looks increasingly more hurt any time Ruby brings up the past

After Watts hacks a bunch of Schnee Dust bots to destroy every Schnee greenhouse, Ruby Weiss Penny Ciel and Flynt are sent to investigate it. Penny figures out that it was a hack that caused all the damage, and Ruby mentions how this brings back bad memories of Penny getting hacked. Penny looks briefly hurt and Ruby realizes what she said was insensitive, but Penny says most of her memories of her hack were corrupted and destroyed so she plays it off. Strangely, she refers to the Schnee Dust bots as her siblings, even though FRWBYV2 just like canon made it clear that the standard Atlas bots are nothing like her

We're given a brief scene of Penny looking at a bunch of merchandise themed after herself. I'm unsure of what exactly this is supposed to mean here. If it's trying to play into her status as Protector of Mantle, this is the only thing FRWBY does for this. Maybe some subtle foreshadowing since some of the merch includes a figurine of her?

Ruby and Penny work together with Pietro to find whatever it is that's leaking Atlas intel to outsiders, that being Robyn's thumb drive. However, this is where tensions between Ruby and Penny hit their boiling point. Throughout FRWBYV7 Penny is "unfortunately unable to spend time with Ruby" due to all the missions she's getting assigned, but Ruby can tell something's off. Ruby eventually confronts her on this, feeling like she's avoiding her which she is

The reason? Back when she died to Pyrrha, her memory core was split in half. We actually see this back in V3 but we're given the now false hope that she could still be salvaged. Nearly all of her memories from before getting rebuilt are gone, the only thing she has left of Ruby is a vague feeling of trust in her. Penny has been avoiding Ruby intentionally so that she can avoid revealing this because she's scared of breaking the friendship she can't recall. Neither of them can tell if this means that the Penny right now is a different person from the one who died at Amity, but they do reconcile at the end of the scene

Now if Penny were to make another return in canon with her memories wiped due to her dying as a human with no memory core, I wouldn't inherently be against this. The problem is that this entirely replaces Penny's canon Atlas arc and themes

On top of this Celtic, the author and narrator, goes so far as to call her THIS Penny once she reveals that she has almost none of her memories, and Penny refers to herself as "This Unit" after the reveal. In Celtic's own mind, the Penny we knew that died in Amity is truly gone. Maybe that's why she's acting out of character she's a different Penny entirely

To add to the strangeness, Penny refers to herself as "this unit" and Beacon Penny as "my previous self." RWBY as a series fully treats Penny as a person, it never uses this kind of techno-robotics language to describe her aside from the villains who obviously don't respect her personhood. In the Atlas arc Penny doesn't treat her Beacon era self as a different person by any means, she's just Penny. FRWBY Penny does even though she still has some of her old memories

To be fair to Celtic, Penny's memory wipe is clearly to act as a mirror to how Ruby could end up becoming, since Silver Eyes in this universe erase the user's memories. But I still hate the silver eye rewrite, and I hate this Penny memory wipe as well

In canon Penny acts as a contrast to Winter and the rest of Atlas' military. After Winter's outburst during the council meeting and leaving the room, she expresses frustration at "acting like a petulant child" by allowing her anger to slip out. Penny, the robot with a soul who was quite literally built to be a military arrest, thinks that she was simply speaking from her heart and sees nothing wrong with her outburst

When Penny and Winter learn about Ironwood planning to abandon Mantle to die their responses are drastically different. Winter tries to rationalize his actions as a "needs of the many" type of situation, even though she really doesn't like it. Penny though hates the decision at every level and "Fails to see what is good about any of this," a pretty clear hint that she'll abandon him once the opportunity arises

When Winter is falling to her death in their fight against Cinder, Penny saves her to Winter's indignation. According to Winter "My life doesn't matter," which plays into the military culture of being a worthless cog that's only as good as your usefulness, how you should be callously thrown away and replaced the microinstant you have no value left. Penny disagrees, she simply saved her because it was the right thing to do

Any relationship or dynamic that Penny had with Winter has been completely removed in FRWBY. The only scene they share real dialogue in is asking if she and Winter knew each other before dying at Amity, but they were basically complete strangers back then so no dice

Come the climax of Volume 7 and Penny gets sent to Atlas' vault with Winter to stop "Ruby" (Neo in disguise) from taking the relics inside. Despite the fact that Penny explicitly has feelings of trust in Ruby despite her lack of memories, and the two of them reconciling earlier this volume, we never hear her thoughts on Ruby's apparent betrayal. No doubts if it's real, no thinking that maybe Ruby has a reason for this, nothing. Fucking nothing. Just do Ironwood's orders like the mindless soulless robot she shouldn't be

They meet Cinder and have a fight with her, but unlike canon there's no dialogue or dynamics in the fight at all. It's just a fight, making it worse than canon. This is a rewrite that actually started including mid-battle banter starting in V5 too so Celtic just didn't think any talking was necessary here. Also, despite Fria being an active participant the entire time unlike in canon, Cinder still manages to escape once Ruby arrives

Fria dies, Penny becomes the winter maiden exactly as planned, tells Ruby that she's "Accepting her responsibility," and she flies after Cinder at Winter's orders. WHAT THE FUCK??? Ruby is RIGHT THERE and you don't have Penny confront her on her seeming betrayal? Okay Celtic

Unable to find Cinder she flies to Ironwood's office. Our final scene of Penny is her and Winter watching the Atlas military about to enact martial law in Mantle

As I stated at the start of the post, I love Penny so much. She's one of my favorite characters in anything. Seeing Celtic completely butcher her in every way possible hurts. A LOT

Now, obviously Penny isn't done in FRWBY, the Atlas arc is only halfway done. But I really, REALLY don't like the direction Celtic took with her

In a literal and metatextual sense, at every single level, this isn't Penny at all. Her central theme of lacking control was completely stripped away for a theme that Celtic completely made up in the form of memory loss. Her dynamics with everybody that isn't Ruby have been completely erased. Hell the narrative itself brings up the question if this is even the same Penny we knew

She went from someone who turns against Ironwood shortly after she hears of his betrayal of Mantle, to being as blindly loyal to Ironwood as the Ace-Ops did in canon despite Celtic's attempts to scrub Atlas of that military culture. We don't even see her thoughts on Ironwood becoming a dictator even though he makes the move to do so by the end of the volume

While he does make a brief appearance after Penny's death at Amity, our first proper look at Pietro in canon is in the Atlas arc's first episode. The first thing we see of him is his shop, where he helped tune up the prosthetic of a faunus girl. He's in Mantle, at ground level, among the common folk. Even if he's one of Atlas' most brilliant minds and scientists, he doesn't really belong with the so-called prestige and elites of Atlas, he finds the floating city stuffy after all. He's even a bit eccentric, he's working on shoes that can make the wearer dance after all. He also gives his thoughts on Ironwood's paranoia, and he plants the seeds of a certain robot we all know and love being revived. After all, this Atlas man knows about team RWBY through his daughter, who else could it be but Penny?

Fixing RWBY doesn't do any of this. We first see him in Atlas. He's not in the first episode at all, we don't meet him until episode 6 over 25% through FRWBYV7, so we see Penny before him. Our first scene of him is working on one of Penny's leg thrusters. His eccentricities were heavily downplayed or outright removed. He has zero doubts on Ironwood since Celtic'a trying to portray him in a less paranoid direction

In canon after Penny gets framed Pietro shares his worries about her potentially dying again since he doubts he can revive her anymore, showing that he has to sacrifice parts of his own soul to bring her to life

FRWBY doesn't give us an equivalent of this scene, or really any scene showing his anxieties about Penny. At least, I don't think so. I tried multiple times to skim over all his scenes in FRWBYV7 and couldn't find anything resembling this. If it does exist I will admit I'm wrong, I am not rewatching that entire 8 hour long video to see if I missed a single scene that might not exist

After Watts creates the food shortage Pietro helps provide food and supplies to the Happy Huntresses so they can distribute it throughout Mantle since most of his money is going unused anyway

For the rest of V7 he's Ironwood's man in the chair, tracing Watts' hacks throughout the arc. He also spies on Yang texting Neo which makes her look suspicious to Ironwood. After Watts hacks the files on Amity he notifies Ironwood giving him the knowledge to head there before Watts hacks it. This is our final scene of him for now

This next one is by far the most important difference for Pietro

In canon, it was his P.E.N.N.Y. project and the aura transfer technology that was chosen by Ironwood over whatever Watts made. It shows that before his turn to villainy Ironwood truly did believe in the idea of a protector with a soul. Pietro is making a personal sacrifice in using the very technology he invented to create Penny as we know her

In FRWBY, Pietro did not invent the aura transfer technology. Watts did. He got kicked out of Atlas for trying to play god. Meaning Pietro effectively stole from Watts by making Penny. Also. How the hell is Penny around? Watts was kicked out for making the technology and yet Atlas allows Pietro to use it? The aura transfer tech was planned to be used on both Amber and Fira too. The fuck? Nobody calls out this hypocrisy or explains the reasoning here other than Watts who's pretty understandably miffed at this

On top of this, Watts making the aura transfer device is a thematic misfire for the sake of jerking him off. It requires the sacrifice of your own soul and health to create new life. Watts in canon and FRWBY is too much of a self-absorbed prick to even consider something like this unless he planned on using other people as test subjects, something FRWBY never elaborated on. Watts would never invent something "with a soul," because the man himself is pretty soulless despite his aura being active

Fixing RWBY, did not do this. Instead RWBYJNRQRN crash land in a mining town outside of Mantle entirely. We don't even see the main cast in Mantle until 1/3rd through the volume

Keep in mind, FRWBY tries to lean about as hard into the Mantle vs Atlas conflict as canon did. And yet, this still ends up weaker than canon

In canon, Ironwood's lack of care for Mantle is readily apparent. He's taking all of their resources and completely neglecting their defenses. There's a literal hole in its wall that even the titanic Alpha Megoliath can easily enter through. After the election he turns Mantle into even more of a police state with more soldiers patrolling the city. Nora even calls out how Mantle is bearing all of the burden for Ironwood's Amity project and how he isn't there at the ground dealing with the effects of his policies. Ironwood responds that "a few city blocks" is worth sacrificing if it meant finishing Amity and restoring global communications

This reaches a head when he decides to abandon Mantle entirely when he gets hit with the triple whammy of learning about Salem's immortality, seeing Cinder's queen chess piece, and that Salem is about to reach Atlas personally. Mantle vs Atlas is largely if not entirely rooted in Ironwood's flaws as a leader

What did Ironwood do to cause the Fall of Atlas in FRWBY? Not much. He doesn't turn Mantle into a police state until about 2/3rds through the volume, Mantle doesn't have a hole in its defenses because Celtic clearly saw it as stupid, there isn't the propaganda announcements, he never says that Mantle is worth sacrificing, never plans on abandoning Mantle (at least not yet), none of that. We're told that Mantle is being hurt by Ironwood taking its resources, but we're never shown ANY effects of this

While Cordovin has a lot of nationalist pride at Atlas, shes moreso an arrogant blowhard than an outright villain. She has Argus' best interests at heart and is able to eventually see reason. Her nationalism still causes problems though, as she pulls out the Colossus to make a statement about the might of Atlas. Which is completely uncalled for to fight the main cast since it's meant to fight grimm the size of skyscrapers, and her using the mech causes a panic among the people that creates a grimm invasion. She creates the mess, she works to clean it up and lets the heroes go

Cordovin's nationalism is so strong in FRWBY that she abandons Argus at the first sign of danger. She says that she has no obligation to protect Argus even thought it's her fucking job, and she gets restrained by Dee and Dudley after giving the villain speech. You would think that Cordovin's nationalism in FRWBY is going to set the stage for Atlas itself being a lot more villainous right? Nope. Cordo is treated as an outlier that doesn't represent Atlas accurately at all

If Cordovin was a man I'm sure she would have seen reason from Ruby's speech of protecting the people. Alas, she's a woman and FRWBY is a misogynistic piece of shit, so she doesn't get to redeem herself

In the Atlas arc the core conflict from the main cast vs Ironwood and the Atlas military is a difference of how to be heroes and save the world. The main cast are idealists trying to save everybody they can despite the odds or how dangerous the situation gets. Meanwhile Ironwood, and by extension Atlas itself, poses itself as the "realistic, pragmatic" approach abandoning the people you can't immediately save because it puts you at a strategic disadvantage. An utterly heartless way to do things because as Blake puts it "You're betraying the people you swore to protect."

In FRWBY this is entirely removed. Instead Ironwood turns on team RWBY because he thinks Ruby betrayed him, when it was Neo in disguise

In canon Atlas has a clear military culture that hurts the self-worth of its soldiers. The Ace-Ops claim that they're disposable unfeeling cogs in the machine that is the Atlas military, even though they clearly don't really feel that way. Clover is blindly loyal to Ironwood and makes rash calls that end in his death due to his desire to appease his superior officer. Winter outright tells Penny "My life doesn't matter!" when she saves her during their fight with Cinder, even though she's slated to be Ironwood's next maiden which means if anybody's life "matters" it would be her's

This is entirely removed in FRWBY. Penny, Ciel, Flynt, Neon, Winter, and Clover. None of them show any signs of this beyond Neon putting up with the racism she faces in Atlas, which only tangentially relates to this at best. On top of this according to Ironwood Atlas' culture of reducing individual expression is "greatly exaggerated" in FRWBY

On the subject of blind loyalty, Atlas' military culture fosters a mindset of thoughtlessly obeying your superiors no matter the situation. The Ace-Ops go from allies protecting Mantle to enemies of the main cast abandoning the poorer half of Atlas according to the whims of Ironwood. It takes almost an entire other volume for them to grow out of this once Ironwood's actions become too monstrous for even them to justify to themselves

In FRWBY this barely exists at all. Clover Flynt and Neon have this "just accept the arrest" attitude when RWBY gets an arrest warrant to see how things play out, but that's ALL

Then you have Jacques who in canon isn't meant to be redeemable in any way. But in FRWBY Celtic straight up makes him a better person than canon to make him "smarter, understand politics, not a greedy idiot." On top of the abuse of his family getting downplayed compared to canon, the election plotline and all that it entailed was cut. Meaning Jacques doesn't end up helping Salem's faction due to his own greed and selfish desire to hurt Ironwood

Then there's Ironwood who in canon is a major contributor to the Fall of Atlas. His paranoid tendencies hurt his reputation among the people, he turned Mantle into a police surveillance state before the main cast even arrived in Atlas, and him not telling anybody anything outside of his inner circle the truth of what he's doing is treated as a failure by the narrative. On top of this his admiration for Salem's perceived lack of humanity is the inspiration for why he takes increasingly monstrous actions once his paranoia starts spiraling at Volume 7's climax which leads to him abandoning Mantle to die

In FRWBY his paranoia has been reduced to the point of near nonexistence. He treats Mantle better than canon because it doesn't have a literal hole in its wall in FRWBY. He eventually tells the Atlas council the partial truth on his own with no prompting from anybody other than them. He doesn't turn Mantle into a police state until he decides to become dictator of Atlas about 2/3rds through V7. His admiration of Salem's lack of humanity was completely cut. He doesn't plan to abandon Mantle, at least not yet

Hell Cinder's backstory was changed to be in Mistral instead of Atlas now. Meaning if Midnight in V8 ends up anything like canon it's the Mistral elite that enslaved and tortured her instead of Atlas'. And I'm sure that if it does remain similar to canon, Madame will abuse Cinder just as badly if not worse than canon. Because unlike Jacques or Ironwood, she's a woman in FRWBY and she won't be from Atlas anymore, and FRWBY is a misogynist piece of shit that LOVES Atlas

The only thing that Celtic did that makes Atlas look worse than canon is that we're shown a fair bit more racism than canon, which I'm sure CRWBY would have done if they had the time money or manpower to include. Unfortunately unlike Celtic CRWBY has to deal with the restrictions of the real world instead of fanfic land's infinite budget, and they needed to prioritize on the story they needed to tell

At their best, in canon the Atlas military is incompetent outside of dealing with a few fodder grimm at a time. At their worst they're active antagonists if not straight up villains due to their nationalism and militaristic chains of command. Assuming they haven't had their tech hijacked or hacked either

In Fixing RWBY though you better believe they carry everything

During the Breach in canon, while the Atlas military did help against the grimm, the student huntsmen already had things pretty under control. They only contributed to stopping the Breach, they didn't save the day when all odds looked impossible

In FRWBY, RWBY, JNPR, CFVY, SSSN, CRDL, Glynda, Oobleck, and Port are getting overwhelmed by the grimm army and retreat. But worry not because the Atlas military is here to singlehandedly dave the day! They set up a light barrier perimeter around the grimm and kill them all

In canon Ruby's Silver eyes keeps the Leviathan occupied and frozen long enough for Cordovin to inflict a finishing blow, there's a good chance she would have lost without Ruby's help due to the damage the mech sustained from the previous battle

In FRWBY the main cast is getting overwhelmed by a grimm army. Ruby is considering using her silver eyes to solve the problem, which is bad because if she does she might forget everything due to silver eyes in this rewrite erasing the user's memories. But worry not because the Argus military is here to singlehandedly save the day! They arrive and get things under control, while the main cast fly to Atlas. According to Jaune in V7 they would have just made things even worse if they stayed

In canon Qrow, Clover, and Robyn work together to take out Tyrian after Ironwood announces the existence of Amity and Salem

In FRWBY, JNR chase him down after he assassinates Robyn. He surrenders without a fight without a fight because Qrow and Clover arrive with a bunch of Atlas military fodder as backup. One, that's lame as hell. Two, you fucking serious Celtic? You had a perfect opportunity to either show JNR's growth or give us a similar fight as canon, and you rob it from us with the military?

There's a line Whitley said in canon V4 that was completely gutted from FRWBY because Celtic cut it to "save for later." He in fact did not retain this scene for V7

The quote in question: "What can a single Huntsman possibly do that an army cannot?"

Celtic took that line and ran with it, but also completely cut it and the scene it originates in. The Atlas military saves the day at The Breach, Argus, and they effortlessly capture Tyrian. Completely takes away from the MAIN CHARACTERS, the HUNTSMEN THAT THE SHOW IS ABOUT, for some pro-military propaganda

This entire writing trend reads like a military propaganda film. "Look at how COOL and AWESOME the army is they easily dealt with those monsters unlike those LAME TEENAGERS, sign up right here to become just as efficient!"

Even taking away the propaganda angle, this shit's antithetical to the type of series RWBY is. Imagine if in Naruto the fodder shinobi army actually beat Madara after he first came back as an Edo Tensei. Imagine if in Dragon Ball the Frieza fodder turn traitor and overwhelm Frieza with numbers killing him. Imagine if in Fairy Tail the nameless magic council fodder beat anybody important from the Balam alliance. Imagine if in Endgame Thanos got overwhelmed by the fodder Wakanda soldiers and died to them instead of Tony's snap. That would be lame as shit

We the audience don't give a shit about nameless, faceless, canon fodder because those shows aren't the type of stories where they even SHOULD matter. So why the FUCK do the nameless, faceless, Atlas fodder save the day in TWO out of the seven volumes of FRWBY, and capture Tyrian a member of Salem's inner circle, instead of the HUNTSMEN MAIN CHARACTERS. It's an intentional choice of the writing that the canon fodder is canon fodder and aren't meant to be relevant. Making the fucking military so much stronger than the main characters and easily deal with threats that overwhelm them doesn't FIX RWBY, it DESTROYS it

In canon Watts and Tyrian obviously did shit to stir up the Fall of Atlas, but it wasn't anything too drastic either. In total:

-Kill Ironwood's detractors to make it look like he's assassinating dissent

-Ally with Jacques to get an in to Atlas' security grids

-Frame Penny during the election

-Turn off Mantle's power grids

There was definitely more planned but Ironwood finally opening up about his secrets derailed that. Most of this plays into the pre-existing animosity Mantle and Atlas have between each other. Ironwood plays just as much a role as they did if not more due to his extreme responses to their actions and how he mistreated Mantle for months even before Volume 7

In FRWBY it gets a lot more complicated. For one thing, Mantle doesn't have the gaping hole in its wall that existed in canon, meaning there would be less friction between the two cities from Ironwood's neglect

In total:

-Tyrian still kills Ironwood's detractors

-During a political rally Robyn has Tyrian sparks outrage against Atlas among the crowd, and right as this happens Watts opens some nearby Mantle gates to let grimm swarm in and make it look like Atlas is trying to stomp out dissent

-Watts hacks Schnee Dust bots to make them destroy every Schnee greenhouse, destroying 1/4th of Atlas' food supplies and causing a food shortage

-Due to this shortage, Cinder and Robyn strike a deal where Cinder destroys a Schnee supply ship so that Mantle can pillage it, and in exchange Cinder gains access to an Atlas server room. This pulls triple duty because it gives Watts access to Atlas' security grids, creates more animosity between Ironwood and the rest of Atlas' council, and becomes one of many reasons why Ironwood turns against Ruby due to her letting Robyn go

-It's strongly implied that Watts fed misinformation to Atlas' information network. Due to this, a bunch of Mantle civilians trading stolen Schnee supplies gets flagged as White Fang smuggling weapons. Weiss Blake and Neon get sent there to "deal" with them, making it look like Atlas is stomping down on Mantle civilians with disproportionate force

-Tyrian assassinates Robyn with a sniper rifle as she shows a recording of Ironwood saying he'll become dictator of Atlas, making it look like Atlas is once again crushing any dissent and this ignites a civil war between Mantle and Atlas

-Neo implants a thumb drive with a virus Watts made into Atlas' power grid, completely shutting off both cities aside from the emergency backup generators

While there's still the element of using the existing animosity between Atlas and Mantle, the effects of what Watts does are so much more far reaching the impact gets weakened. In canon the most far reaching thing he did was turn off Mantle's power. In FRWBY he caused a nationwide food shortage and shuts down BOTH cities

And that doesn't even begin to address the finale which causes things to fall apart between RWBY and Ironwood. His and Roman's plans cause Ironwood to turn against RWBY due to it looking like Ruby betrayed him

There's a comment that Watts made to Ironwood at the end of their fight in Fixing RWBY that stuck out to me. According to Watts, he barely had to lift a finger to cause the Fall of Atlas and that Ironwood's own allies did most of the damage. I was 50/50 on if Watts genuinely believed it or if it was just him talking shit to throw Ironwood off his game. According to a comment Celtic makes in the FRWBYV7 comments section, Watts is right

Here it is: "There's a lot of factors building on top of one another to highlight that Atlas and Mantel were already unstable on multiple levels, and Watts was right; he barely had to lift a finger, just put pressure on a few points until the dominoes fell. No one is right, everyone is wrong, everyone is frustrated, and everyone feels betrayed."

In canon the core conflict between the main cast and Atlas is a fundamentally different view of heroism, as well as Ironwood's own personal flaws taking full control over him. Ironwood and by extension the Atlas military has an ends justify the means mindset. Anything is justified if the end result is saving the world from Salem. After all, Ironwood does say that he'll sacrifice "whatever it takes" to beat her

Ironwood has been neglecting Mantle for months so he could illegally repurpose their supplies for Amity, there's a literal hole in its wall that lets in Grimm by the day. People call it stupid and a plot hole that Ironwood left Mantle undefended, but that's the POINT! Ironwood doesn't give a single iota of a fuck about Mantle, so of COURSE he'd leave a massive hole in its defenses if it meant making Amity as fast as possible. The scene where Nora confronts him on upping Atlas' military presence in Mantle best exemplifies this sentiment: "What's more important? Establishing communication, unite the world? Or appeasing a few city blocks."

RWBYJNR by comparison, want to save everybody possible. Hell Volume 8's opening is called For Every Life, obviously in reference to them saving everybody they can. You could call it naive, but it plays into the series' fairy tail motifs to give its main characters a more idealistic approach to heroism

This creates a natural clash between them that comes to a head once Ironwood hears that Salem is at Atlas' front door. His first instinct, the first thing he comes up with, is to completely abandon Mantle to die to save Atlas even though he has the means and resources to save everybody. And of course, our main cast are entirely against this, leading to RWBY fighting the Ace-Ops. This core conflict is Heroic Optimism vs Ruthless Pragmatism

Fixing RWBY though, didn't take this approach. At all. The main cast have misgivings of his treatment of Mantle but it's nowhere near as bad as canon, hell Mantle doesn't even have the hole in its wall. Hell he doesn't even plan to abandon Mantle here, at least not yet. Maybe he will in FRWBYV8

Instead RWBYJNR's concerns are more about Ironwood becoming more of a dictator, and they wonder if they're doing enough for the world or just being Ironwood's mindless drones. But this doesn't play into the finale. At all

What's the reason for RWBY and Ironwood fighting? Ironwood gets misinformed. Neo disguises herself as Ruby and uses her keycard to access Atlas' vault. Ironwood puts an arrest warrant on team RWBY in response

To be a little fair, there is some stuff beforehand that wore away at his faith in Ruby, but it just isn't super compelling. Ruby let Robyn escape with stolen Schnee supplies when she abuses her authority as a member of Atlas' council. Neo sent Yang a text asking if she trusted her to which Yang responded yes, and Ironwood had Pietro spy on this. Watts and Salem tell him that Rubya and Oz have been lying to him. "Ruby" entering Atlas' vault was the final straw for him

There is no core conflict in the main cast vs Ironwood in FRWBY. No clash of ideals or anything like that. It's just Ironwood making a rash call due to not having all the information that we the audience do. Oh sure, when FRWBY Ironwood does this shit Celtic's fans cheer him on and lap it up but when Robyn in canon acts on the same restrictions they call her a terrorist I see how it is

I normally wouldn't include the comments of anyone other than Celtic's since they're not relevant for this discussion. This one though, is near the top of the FRWBYV7 comment section and plays into my own worries about Ironwood in FRWBYV8. Here it is: "My hope for Volume 8 is that despite Ironwood having more than enough reason for his current actions, that he can be persuaded to help the team and if needed, go out like a true hero as opposed to on his stomach like a beached carp"

I fear this is the direction Celtic's going with Ironwood. He died "like a beached carp" in canon because he lost everything. No army, no allies, no nation, nothing. Cinder saying "And that's checkmate" is brilliant because it made Itonwood reflect on how he's been in "check" ever since she put the black queen chess piece in his office and he's been making terrible decisions ever since. Once you're in checkmate, there's no more moves to make because you've lost

Ironwood is mostly the same in the Beacon era, mainly just some dialogue tweaks here and there, but with one significant difference. The scene where he empathizes with Yang about hallucinating during a battle, something he obviously experienced himself, was completely removed. Instead focusing entirely on the logistics of Yang attacking Mercury when the battle was over

The prosthetic that Ironwood gifted Yang was changed from canon. Instead of being a top of the line modern model, it's just a high end one because apparently a lot of people lost limbs from the Fall of Beacon so he started a program to help the disfigured students. According to Celtic he finds it strange that Yang got a top end prosthetic when the last time she was seen was attacking Mercury. Even though the scene of Ironwood empathizing with Yang can easily explain this

Also. Is Ironwood stupid in FRWBY? Why not use the best possible models for this prosthetic program? These are combat optimized artificial limbs meant to help Huntsmen in training, the difference in specs could mean the difference between life and death for these people

Ironwood's scenes at the Schnee manor are unchanged outside of one difference. When Weiss tries to lock the door to Jacques' office she's too slow and Ironwood opens it. He stops himself and realizes what she's doing, so he tries to keep the conversation with Jacques going to give her a window to continue her escape plan, since his body covers most of the doorframe. While this seems to be a humanizing moment for him to make up for removing his empathy with Yang, it takes away from Weiss' escape

Volume 7, of course, is where things start to really get messy

Like in canon Ironwood pulled out of Mistral and closed Atlas' borders, but Mantle hasn't been turned into a police surveillance state. Hell we don't even see Mantle until 1/3rd through the volume since the main cast crash land in a mining town instead of Mantle

Rather than creating a communication tower like in canon, Ironwood is planning to turn Amity into a satellite canon that can disassemble things on a molecular level, planning to kill Salem and destroy the grimm pools in the world. Somehow, some fucking how, I have no idea why, Ironwood is aware of Salem's immortality and was making this thing in the hopes it'll bypass it

WHAT?! Salem's immortality is one of many revelations about The Lost Fable, both in canon and FRWBY. So how on REMNANT does Ironwood know this? Did Oz tell him and only him? Qrow was just as lost as everybody else about The Lost Fable's revelations. It's NEVER explained how the hell Ironwood knows about Salem's immortality, and nobody acts shocked that he knows either. What the actual fuck Celtic you said you went through eight drafts for FRWBYV7 how did you MISS THIS???

Anyway, Ironwood plans to install himself as the Architecht of Atlas if need be, since he's on pretty bad terms with the rest of Atlas' council. What is the Architect you may ask? It's a position within Atlas' government that gives you absolute authority over every other branch of government, effectively installing himself as dictator of Atlas. He says that he'll step down once the threat of Salem is dealt with, but you know how these types of stories go

Due to Roman being Ozpin in this rewrite, Ironwood puts him and Neo under house arrest until he can essentially force Oz to the surface because he rather understandably, does NOT want to deal with Roman and since they played a role the in the Fall of Beacon. When they escape he's frustrated but says he doesn't blame Ruby, believing that Roman was lying about being Oz and using her

Instead of Winter showing Weiss Fria, here it's Ironwood showing Ruby since she's holding the lamp. Ironwood's plans to guarantee who the next maiden will be is almost unchanged from canon, completely isolating Fria from the world other than his candidate. Only her sick bay is right next to Atlas' vault and they let her leave while blindfolded so she can open the vault so they can put the lamp inside. But in this universe, Penny is his choice. Nobody who's aware of this ever questions if it would work given since a robot with a soul is a completely unprecedented thing in Remnant. The fuck happened to the "smart, logical, realistic, pragmatic" rewrites Celtic? This is just out of character for you

After Fria closes the vault and returns to her medbay, Ironwood explains that he plans to use the Staff of Creation to power Amity's canon. Ruby responds "But won't Atlas fall if you do that?" The Staff's abilities and limitations have never been brought up within FRWBY until just now. So how the FUCK does Ruby know this? Did Ironwood or Qrow tell her off screen or something? Certainly not Ozpin since he's been a complete no-show after The Lost Fable

In canon Ironwood gave RWBYJNR their huntsmen licenses as a show of goodwill, and an acknowledgment that after everything they've done in the series they've more than earned it. It also highlights the intentional messiness of Ruby lying to him since he's been nothing but transparent and helpful to the main cast up to now despite their misgivings with him. In FRWBY they still need to prove themselves and "earn" their licenses. Because stopping multiple terrorist attacks, protecting Haven from Salem's faction, killing Adam, and safely taking the lamp from Haven to Atlas isn't enough because REALISM I guess

After Robyn and Cinder's stunt of crashing a Schnee supply ship and taking its inventory, Ironwood holds an Atlas council meeting, obviously furious at Robyn disobeying his authority. Robyn in turn brings up the very valid point that there was military equipment in the ship, questioning what the hell Ironwood's doing. He defaults to calling it a military classified secret, and the rest of the council is pretty upset with this since as the members of Atlas' governing body they feel that they should be informed on these things

He then berates team RWBY for allowing Robyn and the Happy Huntresses escape from stealing the Schnee supplies. He isn't aggressive about it but makes it clear that since he has two council seats any decisions he orders are absolute unless the entire rest of the council votes against him, and if Robyn pulls another stunt like that again she's to be arrested. Team RWBY is pretty upset with this because he's clearly damn near dictator of Atlas even without the official position

Ruby and Weiss suggest telling Robyn the truth about Amity so that arguing about resource distribution would be easier. He shuts that down because she's a politician like any other and that twisting the truth is in their nature, at least according to him. More importantly, for me, he says that convincing anyone of the truth will be difficult. This confirms that Robyn's lie detector semblance doesn't exist in this universe because it would be too hard to write the story Celtic wanted to tell. Coward

There's an alleged White Fang sighting in Mantle where Weiss, Blake, and Neon investigate. Turns out it was a false flag because it's just a bunch of Mantle civilians trading stolen supplies

Ironwood, Qrow, Winter, and Clover are taken to a meeting with Jacques, Camilla and Sleet, and a bunch of business tycoons. No sign of Robyn though, it's not like she got arrested. Due to all of Ironwood's internal and international policies, everyone there thinks he's planning to start a war with another nation, and they're pissed at him for how badly he's been hurting the economy and their profits. Due to Ironwood refusing to budge on telling anybody anything, Camilla and Sleet hold a vote of no confidence to strip Ironwood of his governmental positions, planning for Winter and Jacques to take his seats once they can get Robyn in on this to vote him out

Ironwood then tells everybody about his plans to destroy the grimm pools and vaguely gestures at Amity's existence, but no specifics about it. No mention of Salem either. Due to his position being threatened, he follows through on his plan to become Architect and enter full dictator mode, announcing it to everybody there

Following this Ironwood enacts stricter security measures among Atlas' huntsmen and the general population, turning Mantle into a police state, and requiring extra checks for the huntsmen which are insanely racist in because they're looking for the White Fang that Ironwood should know isn't in Atlas. The fuck? This genuinely doesn't make any sense, he should know the "White Fang" mission was a false flag. Why the hell is he doing this I can't even say it's his paranoia with how little focus it's gotten in FRWBY

During Atlas' solstice Watts makes moves to Amity.

In canon after Ironwood was encouraged to tell Robyn and the council the truth behind his secrets, he was able to weaponize it. He used Amity's existence as bait to lure out Watts, and before the battle starts he uses the arena's press box to announce that he got him cornered. It shows that even the general of Atlas has a fun side with a flair for the dramatics, and his fight against Watts is his last moment as an unambiguous hero

In FRWBY, due to nobody encouraging Ironwood to tell the truth he has to wait for Watts to make the first move to find him. Pietro traces Watts hacking the files about Amity, so Ironwood heads there as well. Ironwood starts the fight by shooting Watts in the shoulder, from behind, before he's even aware that he's there. Because ruthless pragmatism and being "smart" is king in FRWBY, it's the only damn thing that Celtic values in a character

The fight between Ironwood and Watts plays out basically the same in canon and FRWBY. Is FRWBY Ironwood stupid or is he nerfed? In FRWBY he opened the fight with a cheap shot on Watts and Watts doesn't have a fucking weapon because he's actually a moron in this universe. How the hell does the fight play out the same as canon? Did Celtic buff Watts' fists too?

When Watts has Ironwood pinned down with his light shield he tells him that everybody has been lying to him since he's on god mode intelligence and hacked Atlas' security footage to see that RWBY lied about the lamp. Ironwood frees himself, says "I will sacrifice anything to protect Atlas, to keep the world safe," and KOs Watts

The Seer that Watts was carrying instantly springs after his defeat unlike in canon, meaning Ironwood meets Salem on his own. Salem tells Ironwood Oz has been lying to him and reveals their shared history to him. She offers Ironwood to join her cause and he shows doubts but literally shoots down the illusion of her

As Ironwood is returning to his office, a blackout caused by one of Watts' viruses affects all of Atlas and Mantle. He sees the glass queen chess piece that Cinder placed in his office, but this rings unbelievably hollow here

In canon we're shown that Ironwood has straight up trauma from the black queen imagery in a talk he has with Oscar. This trauma igniting when he sees the queen in his office is a big part of what caused his paranoia to start spiraling out of control. In FRWBY we're not given any sort of equivalent scene setting up the queen trauma. When he sees it's in his office it's just an "oh shit they were here" moment, and no focus is really given on Ironwood's reaction to it either

Cutting the scene showing Ironwood's trauma with the queen chess piece imagery also removes his admiration of Salem. He believes that it's her lack of humanity and the resulting ruthlessness that makes her so effective. Ironwood is wrong about her, it's her knowledge of how people work that's her greatest asset, but this does explain why he takes increasingly more callous and inhumane actions over the course of the Atlas arc. Or in other words, the Tin Man willfully throwing away his heart, playing into his fairy tail inspiration. FRWBY gives no equivalent to this scene

Immediately after seeing the chess piece Ironwood and Winter get a security alert of "Ruby" (Neo in disguise but they don't know that) accessing the elevator to Atlas' vault. He sets an arrest warrant for all of team RWBY

After all the action of the Volume's climax is done Ironwood arrives in Atlas' vault to confront Ruby. Due to a combination of Oz never showing up out of Roman, RWBY letting Robyn go, Ironwood learning that she lied about the lamp from Watts, learning that Oz is a lying villainous dirtbag from Salem, and a text Yang and Neo shared after the crime duo escaped which he had Pietro bug to spy on, he believes Ruby is working with Roman to screw over Atlas and that they've been lying about him being the new Oz. He even goes so far as to guess that those two have been in cahoots as far back as their first meeting in Volume 2. Ruby tries to talk it out and get him to see reason. His response? "I'm done listening." He shoots Ruby off of Atlas just like he did to Oscar in canon

Our currently final scene of Ironwood is him making plans in his office, comforting Penny as she arrives there, while Atlas' military prepares to enact martial law in Mantle

So what the fuck was all THIS? Ironwood's changes are so strange and contradictory, he keeps getting pulled in all these different directions. Even without the standard Celticisms of "smart and pragmatic" rewrites

A number of rewrites would have you believe that Celtic's taking a more brutish and callous direction with him. His empathy with Yang was cut, he gave her a worse prosthetic, he's making a weapon out of Amity instead of a communication tower, his treatment of Fria remaining the same as canon, shooting Watts in the back, and saying that he'll sacrifice "anything" instead of "whatever it takes," support this

But he also has a number of changes that act to soften him countering the above. He helps Weiss escape in V4, choosing Penny as the next maiden suggests that he's taking the "protector with a soul" approach, his general demeanor in V7 is pretty understanding with the main vast, he straight up treats Mantle better than in canon, and he doesn't admire Salem's lack of humanity in this continuity

His paranoia is also just strange. He pulled his soldiers out of Mistral and closed the borders just like in canon, which in canon stemmed from his paranoia, but hasn't turned Mantle into a police surveillance state until over 2/3 through the volume. Him turning Mantle into a police state comes across less like paranoia and more out of dictatorship. But at the climax of the volume he jumps to some wild conclusions about Ruby's alleigances. This could fit his canon counterpart's paranoia, but FRWBY Ironwood's paranoia hasn't really been highlighted beyond not telling people shit