Knight Of Balance: Redux

Set aside the whole 'no lines for Mordred or Morgan' bit- I get the idea that she's basically the Charlamange to Arturia's Karl De Gros. She's the culmination of all the myths of King Arthur: The legendary Celtic warrior and the Christian King alike. Contradictions manifesting in unison, an inhuman ideal, nothing new for Fate.

...But I feel like the way the story depicts her isn't right. Fate as a series made a point about how awful an inhuman ideal would be. Shirou wanted to be such a thing but all of the original FSN was about how awful it would be if he actually tried and how that's not what he truly wanted. The Lion King (and to a lesser extent, Galahad) showed how either monstrous or just kind of insane such an inhuman ideal would be. And what really touched people with the stories of Fate's Round Table is how human their stories were, flaws and all. In particular, people fell for Arturia because she was stubborn, childish, standoffish, hypocritical, ignorant and conflicted she was. She wasn't a perfect knight or king: she was admirable because of how she struggled with that.

Lord Logres just feels like missing the point right now. She's perfect. No stubbornness, no contradictions, no guilt. None of what made Arturia human and thus admirable. Granted, Fate has been whitewashing Arturia for a while now. The focus has been more and more about how great and noble and awesome Arturia is, how her rule was 'perfect' and how she's the best there ever was. Nothing said about the cruel and inhumane actions she took in life. The story harps on about Richard but really, he was just emulating Arturia just with passion instead of pragmatism.

This is an unfortunate consequence of her only being perceived through the eyes of her knights lately, all of whom idolize her. The closest we have gotten to a counter to this is Morgan...who doesn't speak on Arturia's reign and actually gets hit with this by extension. We don't have Kay around to call out her repression or be disgusted with her mask of perfection. Mordred certainly isn't an answer- she probably idolizes Arturia the most among the Round Table given their connection. And we don't get any former enemies in life to criticize her. We just get this view of her as perfect...and Lord Logres just feeds that even more.

Honestly, as Lord Logres is right now- where do you even go with her? You can have the KOTR feel awkward or even reject her. You can have her slaughter people for the sake of winning. You can pull a Lion King 2.0. But everything requires adding a negative element to her character that just doesn't exist right now. She's too squeaky clean to do anything with her, especially when it would be better served by the OG. Hell, the main thing people like about her (aside from being busted in game and being more mature for porn) is that she gives us some lines from Arturia about the KOTR. But there's no awkwardness or regret or pain in them. People wanted the interaction so badly because of the residual pain and regrets from both sides, where the reconciliation and relief would come from overcoming that pain.

For starters, Jinn is way more verbose than canon. I'll just insert their introductory dialogue for comparison

Canon: "I am Jinn, a being created by the god of light to aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge. I’ve been graced with the ability to answer three questions every one hundred years. You’re in luck, as I’m still able to answer two questions this era.”

FRWBY: "I am Jinn, sent by the gods to catalogue the knowledge of existence and to bestow it upon the inheritors of man. I can answer questions of all there is and all there used to be. But Temper your thirsts for knowledge for I can only answer up to three questions. And once asked each question takes a century to renew. This is my second summoning in as much time. As such there are only two questions that remain. Please, tell me, what is your query?"

I liked the framing of The Lost Fable here where the cast picks up various books telling the story of Oz and Salem, but got sick of Celti's narration about it. He basically repeats "A young X picks up *insert book* and speaks in Jinn's voice" six times

In canon The Lost Fable was a story entirely focused on Oz, Salem, the gods, and their central conflict. There really isn't any scene or dialogue you could remove without weakening the story, it's pretty tight despite how dense with lore it is

In FRWBY, between Celtic's bloat problems of adding in useless shit that doesn't fucking matter and Jinn being about twice as much a talker as she is in canon, this is a slog

These pointless details include:

-Salem sending out a message for a hero free her from her father's tower

-Oz and Salem journeying and meeting actual faceless nameless nobodies

-After the gods curse Salem with immortality we meet four hooded faceless nameless magi that are humanity's defenders

-They try to stop the gods from wiping out humanity and accomplish nothing instantly dying instead

-Salem repeatedly eggs on Oz to keep expanding the kingdom they made to "enlighten the lesser people" by conquering and absorbing their nations. This happens three times

Now let's list off the major differences in The Lost Fable from canon:

-Oz is "more cunning than brave"

-The Brothers have an actual fight that results in them destroying the moon and leaving Remnant

-The Grimm were created in response to Salem's trickery to punish all of humanity

-Salem becomes a guiding figure for humanity and gets worshipped as an immortal god in the process

-In response to this worship, the Brothers wipe out humanity sans Salem

-Oz's mission isn't to unite humanity, but to "prove that humanity is more than mindless shadow" whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean. Nobody in-universe knows what this means either

-Oz ends up with Salem a LOT longer after he reincarnates in remnant

-Oz and Salem become international nation conquerors due to being the only people on the planet with magic, and they get worshipped as gods. Why the Brothers didn't appear again to wipe out humanity due to the false idol worship is beyond me

-While Oz is away their children get assassinated, and Salem blames him for not being there to protect them starting their beef. Reminder she's the one instigating him leaving in the first place

-Oz asks Jinn what can kill Salem, and only the gods can do it. He refuses to summon them despite having the means to do so because he knows they'll kill Salem

So there ya go, villain Oz. He's kept the world at war with Salem for thousands of years and destroyed who knows how many lives because he still loves her. As Lionheart put it all he tells is lies, and as Raven put it he isn't fighting to beat Salem but to keep the world the way he likes it. They're fully justified in betraying him in this universe

First of all, the Brothers. While The Lost Fable frames them in a pretty malicious light, they aren't entirely evil. They still deeply care enough about one another to the point that the elder telling the younger that he's being used by Salem was all that was needed to stop their potential fighting. And as we learn in Volume 9, they're moreso VERY flawed creators who have poor ideas about how they should treat their creations rather than actively malicious. In FRWBY they're your typical jackass gods with no good or redeeming qualities, and I expect that V9 will have them intentionally destroy the Ever After with the tree kicking them out to keep up this characterization

And then there's Oz. This is a real chicken or egg situation. Did Celtic want Roman to be Oz's next host and rewrote him to be a villain to keep the similar soul rule? Did he rewrite The Lost Fable and make Oz into a villain and had Roman replace Oscar after? Or did he just make shit up as he went on despite having hindsight on his side? Either way, Oz is just as bad if not WORSE than Salem in this rewrite and he should be left to die in a ditch if him dying didn't mean he'd steal the life of another person

Disclaimer: Once again, I have not watched FRWBY. So this is definitely a 'guy bitches about something from second hand info'. That criticism is completely valid. But hearing this stuff certainly doesn't interest me in finding out for myself.

So to be fair, i don't hate the idea of Ozpin being hesitant to progress the fight against Salem because he loves her. RWBY in general isn't very good with romance (says a lot Renora is the best ship and that's just other show's norm) so trying a different angle could give a better shot. Salem also clearly has complicated feelings about Ozpin, given the almost tender way she treats Oscar at first when he's captured. And logically, Ozpin should have issues with trying to kill the woman he once loved, since those emotions run DEEP. The idea isn't bad and could expand on parts of the show that were left to the wayside, like many fanfics do.

... Problem is that A.) This isn't a fanfic first and foremost. By Celtic's own words, it's an essay first, fanfic second. Whether or not Celtic likes the changes is secondary, them being better for what is intended is the primary concern. Which leads me to B.) These aren't better changes, they're just different.

First off, what is Ozpin intended to be? He's not intended to be a villain or even villain-like figure. People claim the heroes lashing out against him is proof of that...but ignore that everyone still follows his fight and what he believes in. Their conflict with Oz isn't that he's a secret villain: it's that he's a FLAWED MAN who doesn't practice what he preaches. Hence why the heroes are hypocrites with James: it sets them up as committing the same flaws as Ozpin so they reconcile later. But in FRWBY, Ozpin's flaws are taken up to eleven at best. His fear of people ditching him and losing hope becomes a more selfish fear of losing his wife, while STILL having him be responsible for the deaths of who knows how many. This means that the heroes have every right to be as angry as they are in canon and would need to sink MUCH lower to be on his level.

He's also no longer the classic fairy tale hero, the knight who saves the princess, the kind of hero that inspired RWBY, and now he's more of a trickster hero. In a show that glorifies classic heroes. I guess it kind of works with Roman....you know, the fatalistic man who was beating our main heroine over her 'childish' beliefs, beliefs Ozpin originally embodied. This is a big reason why Roman as Ozpin's host doesn't work: They're complete opposites in beliefs in canon. So, again at best: You're gonna have to break one of their characters to make them fit in some way so one of them can be changed by the other (probably Roman since he's the antithesis of RWBY). Now, it seems like this disconnect is just going unaddressed.

And hey, if this were a fanfic about a more realistic take on RWBY, it could have worked. But once more: this isn't a fanfic. It's meant to be a replacement for the original. It has less in common with Dragon Ball AF and more in common with Dragon Ball Evolution. Sure, some stuff presented in Evolution, like the merging of shounen-style mystical martial arts with everyday protagonists, could work. But that's not Dragon Ball and this isn't RWBY. The changes aren't better: they're just a different story when the whole point is to be a better version of the SAME story.

Beacon's sparring matches and Vytal have an elimination threshold where if you get someone's aura below 15% you lose by default. This is never used making it a pointless worldbuilding detail that doesn't fucking matter

In Volume 3 Penny gets hacked to try to kill Pyrrha only for her to die exactly like canon anyway, including Emerald making Pyrrha hallucinate

Pyrrha got some of Amber's maiden powers from the aura transfer device only to die exactly like canon anyway

RNJR has an investigation plot in Volume 5 of trying to find the Branwen tribe. This is a complete waste of time because they don't find where they are and Yang and Weiss lead them there anyway. It feels like trying to address the "stuck in a house" criticism of V5 by making RNJR spin their wheels uselessly because it didn't amount to anything

Ruby gets a broken leg and Yang gets hypothermia when the train to Argus crashes. Yang's hypothermia doesn't really matter and Ruby's leg gets forgotten about by the end of the volume

The Lost Fable has so many pointless extra details added to it that don't. Fucking. Matter. For the story it's telling

Celtic LOVES to add so many pointless details of the main cast rummaging through shit in the Brunswick arc that he actually made me hate it and want it over with as soon as possible

Arslan is a complete waste of time that dies in less than twenty seconds of narration when she throws herself at Cinder

Like, his MC creates a bow before going on an adventure. Do we get to see him train to use it? Nope.

His MC is going to another country to build a supply line to get rare minerals. Do we get to see him haggle with someone? Nope.

His MC's fucking BACKSTORY or any kind of set up for his pre-isekai life, something all GOOD isekais do to explain why the MC would thrive in a new world? Nope, he dies of sleep deprivation on like, page 2.

Okay, new poll. This is a classic.

Personally, I think Adam deserved to die and that it was the right thing to do. After all the people he killed.

And if there are those who say that Adam was forced by Cinder to participate in Beacon, it doesn't matter. If you watch his scenes, Adam is quite willing to participate in the battle. He seems to believe it's the right thing to do, or at least, the best thing for him. His dialogues indicate that.

Added to that, his character card in RWBY: Combat Ready literally says that he wants to destroy the pillars of society (which includes the academies) and thus enslave humanity.

Think of it this way: the White Fang normally steal Dust. But under Roman, they stole even more Dust.

Just because they were forced to cooperate with Cinder doesn't mean Adam didn't want to participate. What bothered him was having to serve under a human.

And Adam didn't care about his soldiers either, since he was willing to let them all die in the bombs at Haven. If you're wondering why he seemed concerned for them, we can say that he simply can't admit that he doesn't care about their lives.

Yes, this has some headcanons involved. But it's a coherent explanation with everything we've seen.

Anyway, Adam destroyed Yang and Blake's auras, and he was about to grab Blake's weapon. It was either act fast or die.

But that's just my opinion. What do you think?

I do think it was right to kill him, same that it's right to kill a home invader or a mugger. He presented a clear threat to Yang and Blake's lives and he was given at least one chance to back away, if not multiple through his chase of Blake. Adam chose to keep attacking, so he did need to be put down to protect his targets' lives.

His personality and behaviors are generally the same as in canon, but his treatment by the narrative is so much worse with nearly all his contributions to the story completely removed

Sun was completely written out of Volume 1, with Yang taking his role as the person Blake opens up about her past with the White Fang after outing herself as an ex-member

Volume 2 he doesn't do anything of note but this time it's also canon. Complete missed opportunity on Celtic's end to have him and Neptune help against the Paladin Roman piloted

In Volume 3 Sun and the rest of his team get electrocuted by Neptune in their fight against NDGO, causing them to lose

In Volume 4 the fight with the Sea Feilong was completely cut, removing a fight where Sun played a major role. Sun is the one to prompt Blake to remove her bow, but this takes away from Blake independently choosing to do so after being sick of hiding for so long. Blake gets a wholly original story in Volume 4 of joining the Menagerie city guard of which Sun doesn't do anything important. The attack on the Belladonna manor happens just like in canon with the only minor difference being Blake and Ilia's argument during the fight, meaning Celtic didn't really write this

Blake's plot in Volume 5 is almost entirely original, where Sun's only real contribution is getting beaten up by Hazel and destroying some White Fang Bullheads in the process.

By the way, remember the talk Sun and Blake had where he puts to bed her self-loathing issues from running away from her loved ones? The talk where Sun says that being abandoned hurts way more than anything Blake's enemies could do to them while he's recovering from Ilia attacking him to drive the point home? Yeah that was given to Kali, Blake's mom instead. She wasn't even injured or anything she just talks Blake through this problem

In Volume 6 Celtic then had the GALL to have Blake say and I quote "Thanks for all your help Sun, I couldn't have done any of this without you." In a rewrite where Sun is a superfluous addition where he has a whopping two and a half "major" contributions to the story

I haven't watched FRWBY like you but I did read Celtic's one full length original work, The Artificer. And one thing to note is that Celtic...can't really write characters. Like, his MC Craft is supposedly a former MMORPG addict transported to a fantasy world, having wasted his life and now gets a do over...but uh. Celtic forgot to give him an arc about that? He mentions being an MMO addict three times in the story and never really struggles with that. He doesn't wish to be playing an MMO, he doesn't assume the world is like an MMO, he doesn't show any real signs of depression that would cause that escapism: Craft just...doesn't care THAT much about MMOs. Craft is also very generic in action. The most stand out thing I can remember about him is that he's smart, that he took into account stuff like costs when he starts up his own business (he has a cheat power in basically the Ultrahand from TOTK) but I think we both know that's less a character trait and more a Celtic obssession.

And Craft is by far the most defined character. There's a pitch-black skinned guy named Tereth who's a former military leader that owns the farm that becomes Craft's first contact with the new world. ... That's uh...about as much as I can tell you. He also owns the farm with a dwarf named Dyf who's a former merchant. He has a crush on a shopkeeper's sister and is awkward about her. Again, as much info as I can give. The 'main' bad guy is some dark elf named Aeritz that is a corrupt merchant. ....Also can't say much. And there's Craft's love interest, Rhine. She's uh...she likes Craft because he helped her out and wasn't an asshole towards her when she was investigating him. She's also a literal angel. You would think that I could say more about the love interest that is a servant of a god but...no.

IT WAS FUCKING