#pro iw

But funnily enough, the whole thing with pushing the idea of 'Ironwood was always a bad guy, clearly a dictator, clearly everyone needs to have seen that or they're a pro-dictator bigot themselves' take... Really just makes both the team of RWBYJNROQ and the narrative that the RWBY writers painted seem worse if you ask me. Like, Team RWBY and co were actively and willingly working with IW for like two months, right? Like, they were down in the thick of it in Mantle sometimes, they saw the security camera that some people swear means that James kept the citizens of Mantle under constant surveillance, they saw the broadcasting of James and Winter that some people swear means that James was obviously feeding Mantle propaganda, they saw how he worked on a project that they actively believed in apparently instead of using the easily transferable resources of a communications tower to fix a broken wall. They saw James put things in place like curfews, which some people are swearing is proof of the ironclad hold Ironwood had on those poor defenseless citizens. They saw that he pulled his forces out of Mistral (on the advice of Winter,) which apparently is heartlessly hording protection, and they also saw him bring some of his forces into Vale which according to some people was a show of power. And despite the fact that there was every indication that IW was fully authorized to be in Vale and fully authorized in bringing over weapons, and despite the fact that he only brought them because he thought there would be an attack (which there was,) and despite the fact that he clearly didn't bring his whole fleet - No, he was invading Vale. And Team RWBY and co also saw his 'over-reliance on machinery' and his 'hatred of humanity' at play, and they saw him let teenagers do any fighting and saw that he was running a child recruitment school (ignore if this breaks the premise of the entire show by implying that Ruby shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a fight,) and they saw that he was supposedly grooming Winter. And they saw that he *gasp* was put in charge of security for an event after an attack that could've been really bad while Ironwood and the rest of Oz's inner circle was anticipating worse I MEAN he was completely unnecessarily put in charge of obviously completely unneeded security for your average everyday not in danger at all sporting event that can easily be compared to sporting events in our world where Salem and Grimm don't exist, and so that was clearly an act of aggression and exercising control.

So, if Ironwood is really a terrible dictator who has clearly been doing off the charts bad things that prove that he's a bad dictator since his very first appearances in volume two, then the options are A. Ruby and co are all so hopelessly naive that they completely ignored the clear and obvious signs of a dictator and then made shocked pikachu faces when he 'tried to leave all the poor people behind to die because of nothing but laziness, cowardice, and classism,' which makes them look really bad. B. Ruby and co are all so dumb that they just didn't realize that all the obviously bad stuff he did was obviously bad and should be a deal breaker because they're just that oblivious. Or C. Team RWBY and their friends can be slotted into the same category that the anti-rwdes put IW fans who say that the fall to villainy was rushed and that he wasn't always clearly bad, and written off as pro-dictator probably classist bigots. Ruby literally shared information on the war with him after a bunch of stuff in season seven because she and Oscar decided to trust him.

(Just to be clear, I don't believe any of that. I believe that Ironwood wasn't clearly super bad until he shot Oscar, and Team RWBY weren't in the wrong to work for and help Ironwood and believe in some of the things he was doing.)

But, using that 'James was always a dictator who was always clearly bad' logic, what does that say about the narrative RWBY the show was presenting us with. Because... Team RWBY and co weren't treated as in the wrong for working for and helping Ironwood and believing in some of the things he was doing. They doubted him a little, here and there, but for the most part just worked with him, and then nobody was like 'we were so stupid to trust him after everything he did' and nobody was like 'We need to be more careful because we were working with a dictator FUCK." In fact, Yang and Ren saying anything against Ruby was still treated as completely bad and something they needed to take back, even though she was the one who told the supposed clearly evil dictator important war secrets. Sooooo, if Ironwood really was a dictator, what was the 'Ruby did no wrong' stuff supposed to tell us as viewers? XD Like I honestly truly prefer thinking 'these writers just screwed up their fall to villainy arc pretty badly' rather than thinking 'these writers deliberately made the heroes willingly and happily work for an evil dictator for months and trust him with important war secrets.'

Honestly, I doubt they're gonna re-think anything.

In my experience, most anti-rwde IW haters spewing ignorant bullshit when confronted with the fact that they're saying bigoted stuff just start whining about 'getting attacked by the mean htdm' who are 'misunderstanding their perfect rwby take' and saying it's because we're like.... Man obsessed or something.

I'd love to be proven wrong though, I blocked them after seeing their shitty 'Ironwood proved he was internally ableist when he sent Yang a free assistive device because that was somehow proving he only saw her as a soldier who needed to get back into the fight despite the fact that he did not do anything else to indicate that he wanted that until Yang showed up ready to fight and a-okay in volume 7 at least a year after the Fall of Beacon' take. But I heard that they also said way more and a lot of it was pretty bad.

IW haters have so much to actually hate on, I'll never understand why they can't just say 'I don't like Ironwood because he tried to bomb people' instead of making shit up and walking the line or often times crossing over the line into being absolute ableist pieces of shit jumping on the 'Ironwood's third prosthetic is a sign of his fall to villainy' and 'Ironwood is the bad disabled person because he (insert thing irl disabled people do or face here that isn't palatable to able-bodied bigots.') Like, literally, the ableism in this fandom gets too much to take sometimes.

I'm not doing either of those things, you just don't listen. But thank you for at least attempting to refute what I said instead of just churning out the same thing. Let me explain to you how you're wrong.

I'm not vilifying the protagonists for working with Ironwood, because I don't believe they were wrong for working with Ironwood, because I think that he wasn't a clearly bad dictator until he shot Oscar (which started him being shot through a villain arc at the speed of light.) I believe that Ironwood was a flawed good guy who was doing some morally dicey things while stuck between a rock and a hard place, and Team RWBY and co were flawed good guys too who rightfully believed in some of the things Ironwood was doing (like trying to launch the communications tower.) I'm simply pointing out that the belief of many anti-rwdes that Ironwood was clearly a bad dictator throughout his appearances but especially in volume seven - if true - wouldn't make Team RWBY and co look good and would actually reflect very badly on them. I don't believe it to be the case that Team RWBY and co were actively working with a dictator for months. Therefore I'm not vilifying them for willingly working with a dictator for months because I don't believe that they were doing that. But the anti-rwde posters who are of the opinion that Ironwood was always a dictator and that it should've been obvious and anyone who doesn't believe that to be the case is either stupid or a bigot do believe that Team RWBY and co willingly worked with a dictator for months. They're the ones accidentally vilifying the mains, you're just getting angry at me for pointing it out. By their logic (and assumingly yours) Team RWBY and co (and the writers) all belong in the same category as me.

I also don't think that I've really vilified Team RWBY and co for going against Ironwood. either. I've been very clear about the fact that I think that the essentially trolley problem at the end of volume seven was one that had absolutely no 'right answer' or perfect solution, and Team RWBY's stance of 'we should risk it all in the hopes of saving everyone and leaving no one behind' - while a little idealistic - could've been written in a good and very hopeful way. I'm not sure it was a good choice of the writers and I think it could've been done a lot better, but I don't think Team RWBY were wrong to take the stance they did as characters. I feel like I've been clear about that. I don't start getting frustrated with Team RWBY and co until Volume Eight, and I don't think anyone comes out of that volume looking good, and I know I've been very clear about the fact that I think the writers are to blame and still love the characters of Ruby and Yang and stuff even if some of the things they do frustrate me at times.

Yep yep yep. For the sake of the argument, assuming that Ironwood was always a horrible evil dictator, Winter looks way worse than Team RWBY and co, especially because the line for what they couldn't take for them was - according to some anti-rwdes - 'abandoning thousands of poor people to die out of nothing but cowardice and classism' after they worked with him despite being a dictator crushing Mantle beneath his heel, but for Winter the line for what she couldn't take was Ironwood saying he wished he could've tortured children and threatening to bomb civilians or something, and not literally murdering anybody who said anything against him.

There are excuses for her that anti-rwde people sometimes make (that don't exist for Team RWBY and co) like 'she was groomed' and 'she was brainwashed.' But like, first of all, I think that's hard for me to believe because Winter was a very certain stubborn kickass woman who had created her own way out of an abusive situation and rose through the ranks on her own merit before the majority male writers were like 'actually what if she was a sad girl who had never done anything herself and had her actions puppeteered by a man,' and second of all... Because there's only so much excusing you can do if the thing you're trying to excuse is 'working for a dictator,' especially one that was clearly and obviously a dictator like some anti-rwdes think.

Again, I don't believe that Winter was working for a dictator until volume eight, and the whole villain arc was so rushed and badly done that I struggle to blame her as a character for it - what I actually blame her for isn't part of the conversation atm lol. But yeah, since I don't think Ironwood was a clear and obvious dictator or bad guy until shooting Oscar, I don't blame Winter for working with and for him. But for the sake of the argument, pretending that he was, there's only so much Winter can get away with under the excuse that she was brainwashed. Like, I think Kylo Ren was brainwashed too, but that doesn't mean that his actions are suddenly easily brushed aside and don't matter at all. I think Azula was brainwashed and controlled by her evil father, but that doesn't mean that she wasn't a villain who did terrible things who needed to be held at least partially accountable for her actions, and she's fourteen unlike the grown adult Winter. I think Emerald and Mercury were brainwashed and groomed by Cinder, probably, but I still think they're responsible for doing things like murdering people, and any redemption for them shouldn't be as easy as 'I'm a good guy now' 'oh really?' 'yeah,' 'cool we'll trust you and laugh alongside you and now you're part of the group and we can exchange fond looks.' Like...? So if Ironwood was really always a clear and obvious dictator, Winter is just... Completely forgiven easily? With no preamble? With no one treating her with suspicion? And while we're at it, the Ace Ops? Same category as Winter as far as I'm concerned. And Qrow and Team RWBYJNOR and Ozpin and even Pyrrha and Glynda who worked with Ironwood in the third season while he was 'strongarming Vale' and 'betrayed Ozpin' and took over as head of security for an event which was 'definitely a sure sign of him being a bad dictator' ...all of them at least fucked up and did bad for working with and having no real problem with a dictator from season two to the eleventh hour of volume seven.

It's like you said, if Ironwood really was a dictator in a fascist state, then the message the show seems to be sending is 'there is only one bad guy in charge who must be taken out, everyone else is fine.' It'd be like if Snoke had died in Star Wars the Last Jedi and then everyone in the Empire was just like "Well we're all friends and we're all good and we're all fine now that Snoke is dead,' and former high ranking First Order officers and the Knights of Ren were invited into the resistance happily with nobody really questioning their morals or trying to hold them accountable. Except it'd be like that plus if Rey, Finn, Poe, and Rose had all actually been working for the First Order for two months and only started having problems when Snoke was like 'maybe let's destroy a planet,' and then they were like 'well we've done nothing wrong, we don't have to examine our own morals either.'

Exactly. Like, I've been paying attention to things like Miles Luna saying they'd originally written Ironwood to be a bit of a dick but then 'discovered he had a heart' and the writers saying that he was a 'fallen hero' and had paved the road to hell with 'good intentions' and that the ethical dilemma at the end of volume seven (rescue Atlas, the already evacuated Mantle citizens, and the Relics Salem wanted at the cost of leaving behind the remaining Mantle citizens or trap Atlas, the already evacuated Mantle citizens, and the Relics Salem wanted at the risk of losing everything on the off chance they might be able to save more people) was meant to be one with no clear answer and no clear right and wrong. The 'Ironwood was always an evil bad dictator' people should logically see that sort of thing and actively think the writers are incompetent or liars, or that they're so opposed with 'Alpha Males' that they didn't even realize they were writing a dictator, or... They're pro-dictator. Either way, it would - using their logic - reflect badly on the writers and would inevitably also make the group of heroes look really really bad in universe.

Like, the way that I see it is that the writers made Ironwood with the vague concept of maybe potentially being a bad guy later on, but using their flying by the seat their pants writing style decided that Ironwood worked better as a good guy during the Beacon arc and tbh also the Mistral arc, and then continuing with their fly by the seat of their pants writing style, decided to try to do a morally complicated plot with the whole volume seven, and then decided they wanted villain Ironwood and started making him a 'villain with a point' who was against Salem but also way too 'ends justify the means' and also needed to be stopped. And although I don't really like fallen hero arcs as a general rule, the concept itself isn't a bad one and I just think it was really poorly executed. But the way this angle of the 'Ironwood was written as a flawed good guy who did morally gray things with his back to the wall and then was suddenly written to be villainous evil for the sake of it scum' thing reflects on the characters in universe... Isn't super bad actually. Sure I think Ruby and co could've made some better choices and some of the way the writers decided to characterize them is annoying and again, badly done. But 'they were working for a good guy despite the fact that they didn't always agree with him on everything and he wasn't always perfect, they had a pretty big ideological difference of opinion that drove them apart, and then Ironwood started going absolutely off the rails bad seemingly out of nowhere, making Team RWBY and co have to take him out'... While I still think it was badly done, that reflects so much better on Team RWBY and co than the 'they were willingly and happily working for a dictator for months and the only explanation for it is incompetence or them actually not minding dictators' that comes with the 'Ironwood was always a bad evil dictator' angle.

I love that RWBY has a new opening theme song and sequence every season, but a lot of what they choose to put in their opening sequences often bugs the life out of me. This is a long one, so I'm gonna put it under a read more.

When James fans point out that he openly accepts the council of others like Glynda and the Ace Ops, they say “he only trusts the people he keeps close to him.” And then when we point out that James shows open trust to Team RWBYJNOR when they first arrive, they say “he only trusts until he's given the slightest reason to distrust or there’s a disagreement or people challenge him, then he won't listen to anyone.” And James fans could point out that he literally trusts Team RWBYJNOR despite them stealing a plane unnecessarily, and works with Robyn willingly even after she started stealing needed supplies, and forgives Ruby for lying to him, and trusts Qrow to tell him to lead his men in V3 even after they’ve been arguing pretty severely and right after it seemed like Qrow was literally trying to kill him. But the response to that is usually “HE'S ONLY EVER NICE TO PEOPLE TO MANIPULATE THEM, SO IT WASN’T SHOWING REAL TRUST, YOU IDIOT!” Which is always fun.

So it’s not that he never displays trust or listens to others, it’s that people don’t want to believe he’s sincere. That’s fair and I honestly don’t care. So long as hate against Ironwood is tagged as 'anti ironwood,' I couldn't care less. People are well within their rights to headcanon what they want to make RWBY more enjoyable for them personally. My problem is that a lot of people get mad at IW fans for not subscribing to the ‘right’ headcanon that lines up with the ‘villain James’ that we believe is severely out of character.

But also the ‘trust and love and friendship will see us through’ theme is so badly done. And Ironwood is supposed to be the horrible anti-friend, anti-trust person who contrasts Team RWBYJNOR (And more specifically Ruby’s) pro-friends, pro trust beliefs. The main protagonist team wins because they trust, they’re good because they love their friends, we should root for them because they give second chances and listen to others! Except that the writers did a terrible job, because their ‘trust’ and ‘second chances’ and ‘listening to others’ isn’t consistent at all. We’re meant to ignore the fact that they drew their weapons on Qrow for stepping forward and saying hey and told him to fall in line or get lost when he didn’t like their completely unnecessary ‘steal a plane’ plan in Argus, because also they think the Ace Ops should be friends. We’re meant to ignore the fact that every single person in RWBYJNOR was willing to consider Whitley a snotty unwanted nuisance and no one had a problem with Weiss pointing her loaded weapon in his face, because once Whitley starts doing what they want, Weiss gives him a hug. We’re meant to ignore the fact that Ruby lied to Ironwood literally because she was suspicious of him despite him having reasons she believed in for the things that he did, because also Yang and Blake randomly told a hot tempered vigilante stealing from the project they believed in all or their plans. We’re meant to ignore the fact that they act like doubting Ruby is some horrible, scandalous thing and that they act like Ren not always telling Nora everything and not just being her boyfriend when she wants him to and then doubting that they’re doing much good makes him a horrible friend and a bad partner, because the group laughs along with someone who was trying to help murder Penny yesterday because now she says that they’ve improved and are actually good and right and that they grew. The protagonists don’t always act with trust anymore. Sometimes they just randomly pick the people that it’s arguably unwise to trust and share everything with them. But then they’ll act like the slightest protest to Ruby’s desires is morally wrong, or only tolerate some people when they’re doing everything they want, or they play mean spirited pranks on people who are soldiers or Whitley just because they don’t immediately like them. Or they suggest someone is being like already evil Ironwood if they so much as say “maybe we should decide to do something that would help people” when Ruby doesn’t want to commit. And they’ll decide someone is probably evil actually if that person explains everything they’re doing in detail and has a plan that the heroes one hundred percent like and back up but also they look tired. But then they’ll be like “Yeeeeah Winter did suggest martial law, which is a concept we’ve acted like has horrified us, and she did work with Ironwood willingly, the person we’ve literally warned the entire world couldn’t be trusted because we distrusted him and thought he was evil that much, and we have no reason besides her sometimes cold displays of affection towards Weiss to believe that she’s randomly turned her back on everything she believed yesterday and honestly every ‘indication of evil’ that we seemed wary of with Ironwood is something Winter has displayed just as much if not more than he did in season seven, but we really want her to be nice, so of course we trust Winter! We love trust! We always give second chances and listen to others!” You know what the protagonist team’s morals are now?

The writers just have things work out for Team Protagonists and their random as heck granting of trust and goodwill or doling out distrust and a complete lack of care and compassion because they’re the protagonists. It’s like Ruby has a script that lets her see who’s definitely going to turn evil and who’s going to be good, or she hears the same plucky or heroic music when some people talk and the same ‘trouble a’brewing’ and foreboding music when others talk that we as the audience do. Just like her choices don’t always make even a lick of sense, and somehow work out because protagonist magic and author-admitted letting her cheat the rules because they wrote themselves into a corner. Ruby and co don’t always trust, aren’t always nice, don’t always give second or even first chances, don’t always want to be friends, don’t always try to bridge a gap, definitely don’t always listen to others, and they oftentimes act like everyone should have to do what they say and that doubting Ruby is akin to declaring war or at the very least being a terrible friend. But if Ironwood so much as says ‘maybe Ozpin is wrong about some things even though we’re on the same side and are friends, and I shouldn’t just blindly do everything he tells me,’ that’s treated as proof of evil.

And their reasoning is usually something like “They didn’t seem that close to me, it didn’t feel like Qrow actually cared about Ironwood at all, they were at each others throats in one of their first appearances, Ironwood said if Qrow was one of his men he’d shoot him :/” And it really seems to me like they blacked out for not only how Ironwood and Qrow were in the Fall of Beacon, but also anything after that until the Qrow/Robyn/Tyrian/Clover fight.

So let’s talk about why I think the show portrayed them as friends. As always, this is how I saw things, and I do recognize that my interpretation of things isn’t the only acceptable reading, as I am biased towards both these men and towards their relationship, but this is just kind of a ‘hey, this is why people think that whole ‘wanting to kill each other’ thing felt really OOC,’ explanation.

Pro IW content behind the keep reading, obviously, so if you’re one of those people who can’t stand to see any positive take or any fondness towards this character, this post isn’t for you and please leave it be. :)