#fischer writes!

I had no emotional response to Clover’s death.  It didn’t affect me.

I mean, I get why it was a big deal for Qrow and I felt bad for him. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that Jason Leibricht really sold the emotional impact the moment had on our favorite birb uncle.  As the season progressed, I wasn’t entirely sold on Jason for this role.  To me, it felt as though he was holding back or playing it safe and as a result had fallen into the Generic Older Male Voice (also known as Dad Voice) that I’ve heard a thousand times before.  But this moment, that guttural yell of “I’ll kill you!” after Tyrian skewered Clover with Harbinger, followed by the quiet oath to bring Ironwood down really brought out the emotion of the scene. It all underlined how Qrow, who was just starting to crawl out of his rock bottom, has had his footing outed from under him again and is prepared to cross a line he may not come back from.  Kudos to Jason for bringing that kind of emotion to the role.

But I’m not here to talk about Jason’s performance.  I’m not really even here to talk about Qrow.  I’m here to talk about Clover as a character and why his death (rather than Qrow’s response to it) didn’t hit me as it seems to have hit so many others.

The main reason is that I don’t feel as though we were given anything about Clover to make us care about him as a character.  At the end of the Volume 7, all I took away from Clover as a character was:

1.      Elite Soldier (Huntsman?)

2.      Follows Orders (loyal to Ironwood)

3.      “Good”

And I’ll admit, I wasn’t even sold on that last point until literally the end of the volume. Why?  Because we were told nothing about him and it felt as though it was done on purpose, like something was purposefully being kept from us as an audience. I think that’s why so many people (myself included) didn’t trust Clover. 

This brings me to the concept of character motivations.  Motivations (why a character does or says the things they do or say) are paramount to a character.  Those three traits I listed above are a good base for a character, but they aren’t in of themselves motivations.  How did Clover become a member of the Ace Ops, much less their leader.  Why is he so loyal to Ironwood that he would risk arresting his ally and supposed “friend” (while in the middle of transporting a known serial killer), just to follow his orders?  What is his interest in Qrow?  Does he remind Clover of someone he was once close to?  Does he not like seeing people so down on themselves?  Does he feel some kind of connection to him because of their semblances or because they share the unique position of knowing the Truth?

These are all questions that could have easily been answered in any of the interactions between Clover had with Ironwood, his team or Qrow.  I’m not saying we need an in-depth backstory or anything close, but a couple of lines here and there that give the audience a little insight into his character.

An example of some established character motivations and is the insight we were given for Ironwood.  I don’t agree with the decisions he’s making by the end of the volume (in fact, I think they’re absolutely terrible decisions), but I at least understand why he’s making them.  We are shown repeatedly the motivations that are currently driving Ironwood.  As one of the few people who know the truth about Salem, he feels an immense responsibility to keep Atlas safe.  However, because of the growing tensions between Atlas and Mantle, he feels increasingly overwhelmed and isolated.  Penny’s father observes that Ironwood is tired and we see that ourselves within the first few minutes of the first episode.  Ironwood also feels a sense of responsibility for what happened to Vale.  He says that it was his machines that were used against them and that he isn’t going to ever let that happen again.  In a way, even with Penny and Winter at his side and the Ace Ops backing him up, Ironwood has taken his kingdom’s survival onto his own shoulders and his shoulders alone.

I could go on dissecting Ironwood’s character and his motivations, but that’s a different paper for a different time.  The point I’m trying to make here is that by establishing Ironwood’s motivations and giving an insight into his character, the audience is given a reason to care about him and the decisions he makes, regardless if we think them to be good or bad.  We don’t get that with Clover.

Because we don’t know anything about Clover’s motivations, the fact that he tries to arrest Qrow while in the middle of transporting Tyrian, not only makes him look foolish, but far from the elite soldier he’s made out to be.  You would think that an elite soldier would come to the reasonable conclusion that getting the very dangerous serial killer in his custody to a secure location would be the bigger priority than arresting a possibly rogue huntsman.  I remember staring at my screen dumbfounded when Clover got up to attempt to arrest Qrow. I even said out loud: “You idiot! Get the killer behind bars first! What are you doing?!”  If we had been told (or better yet shown) that Clover has the same sort of blind loyalty to Ironwood that Qrow had to Ozpin, this would have made more sense.  Don’t get me wrong, it still would have been stupid, but at least we would have understood why his priorities were skewed the way they were.

Similarly, we don’t know Clover’s reasoning for befriending Qrow in the first place, therefore his attempts to arrest him and the resulting fight don’t carry the weight I think it should have or was meant to have.  And here I’m going to say something that is probably going to be very unpopular: I never bought the friendship (or budding ship, if you’re into shipping) the plot was trying to set up between them.  To me it felt incredibly one-sided.  Clover said a couple of nice things to Qrow for Reasons and suddenly the two of them are besties?  Potential lovers?  That’s not how that works!  I don’t know, maybe coming off of Volume 6 Qrow was so starved for positive attention from someone that literally anyone could have said something nice to him and he’d immediately be eating out of the palm of their hand.  This “friendship” reminded me so much of Caboose’s one-sided friendship with Church in RvB.  However, where Caboose and Church is played for laughs (mostly), Qrow and Clover is played perfectly straight and I couldn’t help but cringe every time the two of them interacted on screen.  As I mentioned earlier, if it had not been for Jason bringing his A-game in that final fight between them, the whole thing would have fallen so flat for me.

No, at the time she’d been jealous.  While she was picking up Utah’s unconscious body from the testing room floor after the force-field dome had suffocated him, they were out in the field performing feats of daring-do in the name of justice.  As she scraped Georgia off the side of the ship after a failed jetpack test, she watched as South’s and North’s names played leapfrog with each other on the Leader Board through a window.

That damn board was everywhere.  No matter where she looked, there it was looming invasively in her field of vision.  It was the first thing she saw in the morning and it was the last thing she saw before lights out.  She hated it.  She didn’t hate it because of the competition it created among the agents as a whole, but the fact that she would never ever see her name on it.  The Leader Board was reserved for the top 10 agents.  Of the 50 agents that made up the project, Virginia consistently fell somewhere between 20th and 25th in ranking. 

The names on the board constantly moved up and down and there never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to it.  York’s name could be 4th one day and 6th the next.  Even if his mission was hailed as a success, his name could fall one or two slots.  Then there were the times a mission had been an utter failure and rather than everyone falling off the board or the board remaining unchanged, someone inevitably moved up the list, kicking the next person up down a rung or even off the board all together.  Connie's name always seemed to flirt with the board, but never seemed to hang on to that 10th slot for very long.  The one name that remained constant was Carolina’s.  It sat perched at number one.

  "You don't really want to be on the board," Utah told Virginia once.  "Imagine the pressure those guys are under all the time.  They have to be perfect, like, always.  Its gotta be like being under a microscope or something."  

Being locked in a cell didn’t help matters either.  So far the Federal Army had treated him better than he’d expected, though.  He’d expected to be tortured, even killed as a member of the enemy camp.  Maybe it had been his years with Project Freelancer that had turned him into such a pessimist.  Wash really didn’t know, and by now it was too late to speculate anyway.

He shifted his weight, trying to alleviate some of his remaining pain.  The bunk under his body didn’t provide much comfort.  The only thing between him and the cold metal frame was a thin mattress.  As he stared up at the ceiling, one arm over his head, he thought of the nights he’d spent outside on the ground, or in the passenger seat of a warthog.  Nights he was left alone with his dark thoughts and oscillating between sorting out and attempting to ignore memories that could be or could not be his; hoping a new mission would come in from Command so he’d have something else to focus on.  At the same time, he dreaded those same calls.  Whose body - which friend - would he have to dispose of next?  Who would be the next to die?

Wash tried not to think that it was happening all over again.  This time there was no Command to cut into his wheeling mind with orders that pulled him back from a very dark brink.  This time he didn’t have the ability to actually see the dead for himself.  He couldn’t tell if being able to see their bodies had made their deaths any easier for him.  At least, though, he could say goodbye in his own way.

Locus made it a point to keep him advised what was going on outside his prison.  The last time he had been there he had told Wash of an attempt the New Republic had made on a base.  That they had been looking for him, Sarge and Donut.  He’d made it a point to tell him that people had died.  He had stated these deaths simply as fact, but at the same time he’d taunted Wash:  People were dying and people would continue to die.  Was that the reason they’d kept him and the others alive?  As bait?

Wash shuddered and rolled onto his side.  Sleep obviously was not coming.

There was another difference now than when he’d been a recovery agent, blowing up the bodies and equipment of his comrades.  He was different.  He still struggled, had his bad days, faltered and stumbled, but he had something to believe in, something worth fighting for, a reason to survive.  The Reds and the Blues had given him his second chance and in doing so had shown him he didn’t have to be alone, that the universe wasn’t going to always to stab him in the back.  Though, a glance around his cell and the continuing ache in his side was enough of a reminder that the universe sure could still try to do its worst if it wanted to.

Wash sighed deeply and closed his eyes, shutting out the monotone grey walls.  He wanted to see Sarge and Donut for himself.  See how they were holding up.  Prison wasn’t anything new for Wash, but he doubted either of them had spent any amount of time locked up.  Well, maybe Sarge had at some point, but Donut?  Unlikely.  Was he alright?  Wash had to believe that he was.  He was probably complaining that his cell didn’t have enough natural lighting, but a few choice interior-decorating changes could really cheer up the place.  And Sarge…well, Wash was sure Sarge was concocting some crackpot convoluted escape plan that involved as much diesel as he could get his hands on.  And explosions.  It wasn’t a Sarge Plan if it didn’t involve something blowing up and Grif somehow getting injured, even if he was nowhere near the place.  

Wash laughed.  The noise startled him, causing his eyes to snap open.  He stared at the far wall of his cell.  The sound of his own laughter had sounded so foreign that at first he wasn’t even sure that it had been his own.  Carefully and without moving he looked around, just to be sure that laugh had actually come from him.   There was no one.  No hulking armor or taunting helmet.  He was completely alone.  Relieved, he let out the breath he’d been holding tightly in his chest.

With a grunt, Wash pushed himself up from his bunk and swung his legs over the side.  Back in the canyon, when sleep was nothing more than a memory from a life he’d long left behind, he’d leave the base and walk.  Just walk around.  Sometimes the simple action helped him keep himself in the present.  The cell was just large enough for a bunk, a toilet and a small table, so walking was more like pacing, but it was better than nothing.

Despite saying very little, Locus had actually told Wash a lot during the man’s last visit.  Tucker, Caboose Grif and Simmons had made it out of the canyon.  Somehow they had learned that he, Sarge and Donut were still alive and they were working with The New Republic.  Wash was proud of them.   They weren’t the same immature soldiers he’d met.  They’d come a long way, his team.

They were looking for you…I killed one.

Wash winced.  He stopped pacing in the middle of the cell, a hand to his head.  For a moment his mind tortured him with imagined bodies in varying shades lying on the ground, slumped over the steering wheel of a jeep, or trapped within the smoldering remains of a tank.

They’ll come again.  More will die.

They were going to die trying to find him.  That was the reason he was still alive, so the Federal Army could draw out the New Republic and pick them off slowly, methodically.  And Locus would be there every time, pulling the trigger, plunging the knife.  Afterwards he’d stand outside Wash’s cell and tell him they were dead in that infuriating calm voice, calling him David the whole time.

Wash’s stomach lurched into his throat.  This wasn’t what he wanted.  He closed his eyes tightly.  This wasn’t what he’d planned.  He didn’t want to be the cause of their problems anymore.  He wanted them to live.   He wanted them to have at least that chance. 

He wished they’d do something.  Interrogate him.  Torture him.  Anything but leave him alone and on display.  All this sitting around waiting for something to happen and not knowing what was going on beyond his cell walls was maddening. 

Then he showed up. 

His presence alone caused the other soldiers to scatter quickly.  None of them dared to look at the man directly, but instead cast weary looks over their shoulders at his back as they hurried off. 

Wash watched them go before moving his eyes to look at Locus.  This is it, Wash told himself.  But Locus didn’t move.  He just stood there silently watching, his face completely obscured by his helmet. 

Without his own armor, Wash felt exposed and vulnerable, small even under Locus’s watch.  Even through the helmet it felt intense, as though Locus could see straight through him; through all the defenses Wash had spent years perfecting with the Project - those defenses that had once kept the Director from getting into his head.  For an agonizing moment, Wash believed Locus could see straight into his soul and all the darkness that he still carried.  A cold sweat beaded his forehead.

Don’t give him the satisfaction, he ordered himself.   “You want something?” he asked.

Locus didn’t respond, just continued to stand there and watch.

“Or you can stand there mute all day, I don’t care.” Wash told him and slouched back on the metal cot, raising a leg up and balanced his elbow against it.  He looked away from Locus and stared at the wall at the far side of the cell.  He could still feel Locus’s eyes on him, boring through him.  His body wanted to shudder and it was taking everything in his power to keep it from doing so.   Wash sat looking at the far wall for what could have been forever, but was probably less than a minute before he couldn’t help but glance sidelong at the front of his cell.  He half expected (or maybe more so hoped) to see that Locus had gone just as suddenly and as silently as he’d appeared.

Nope.   Still there.  Still watching.  This was quickly moving from being just intimidating to being intimidating and creepy.  Wash took a deep breath and turned his eyes back to the far wall.

“They were here.”

At first Wash wasn’t sure if Locus had actually spoken or if his imagination had filed the uncomfortable void of silence for him.

“They were here,” Locus repeated.  “Looking for you.”

“So you can actually talk,” Wash quipped an eyebrow raised.

“I killed one.”

Wash’s stomach turned into a rock dropped into his lower intestines.  He couldn’t breathe.  Looking at Locus squarely now, he could have sworn that damned helmet was grinning at him.

God no. Please no.  “Who?” Wash asked in a low voice.

“Does it matter?” Locus answered dismissively. 

“Who?!” Wash was on his feet now, closing the distance between him and Locus with more speed than his still healing injuries should have let him.  The only thing that stopped him were the bars on his cell, which he crashed against with a clatter.  He gripped the bars tightly, his knuckles turning white.  “Tell me, dammit!” 

Though Locus’s voice didn’t change at all from its deep deadpan, that helmet continued to taunt Wash.  “I believe his name was Rogers.” 

A wave of relief came over Wash and he could breath again, but he would be damned if he let this psycho see it.  He kept gripping those bars and he glared at the man just beyond.

“They’ll come again,” Locus told him.  “More will die.”

Wash’s eyes narrowed into slits.  He was so close to the man.  So tantalizing close, he could just reach out and grab him by the throat, rip that smug helmet off his face and use it to beat his skull in. 

Locus was silent again, staring Wash down, as if daring him to even try and kill him.   “More will die,” he repeated.  “They’ll die trying to save you, David.”

Wash’s lungs sucked in a sharp breath and refused to let it go.  His stomach dropped further into his bowels. He was staring now, eyes wide. The threat of Locus’s statement was punctuated hard with the use of Wash's first name.  A name he never wanted to - or thought - he’d hear again. 

“Who are you?” Wash finally managed to choke out.