Yall ever think about red like roses? You know the song, it’s like the precursor to most popular Rwby song that’s ever happened? Which is red like roses part 2? That one? You guys ever think about it?
Cause boy howdy I do
The fact that it’s her trailer song?
Because I think about it! The fact that both Ruby and yangs trailer songs are both as much or more about other people then it is about them but Ruby’s is the one that’s a lie
Red like roses, the original, is a sad sorrowful song, its soft and sad and it has only 2 lines about herself
“Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest”
Simply grief
It also only contains the lines from everyone’s song that simplifies them down to their colors
Them without their depth, how they see themselves, how they’re seen by the world
Them as they present themselves
But Ruby’s is just
Grief
Just loss
And then throughout the rest of the song we get a lot more upbeat of a tune for her to fight to
But no lyrics
And even with the more upbeat tune it’s not *happy* it’s just active
And then after that, we get a small bit of a horror like sound until we get the fast paced red like roses sounds we know and love (very much feeling like a final move victory kinda sound very much like her sister end of her song)
But that’s it
Ruby’s grief, Weiss’s yearning, Blake’s self loathing, and Yang burning (I have a whole other thing I can say about how those lines are the things she focuses on but another time) and then instrumentals
But THEN
Red like roses part two
And BOY is it different
For ONE
the first section of the song is nearly entirely devoid of instruments!!! It’s just her speaking
Saying what she wants to say
And her FIRST LINE
Is PURELY ANGER
and it’s why red like roses is my FAVORITE FUCKING PEICE of character writing for Ruby or even in the damn show
NOTHING TOPS THIS!!!
The character choice that is deep down Ruby’s most essential feelings are RAGE
The character Choice that she is ANGRY AT HER MOTHER FOR DYING
GODDDD HOW GREAT IS THAT!!! HOW FANTASTIC!!! HOW WONDERFUL!!!
GOD ITS SO GOOOOOOODDDD
Yeah she’s devastated CLEARLY is she devastated!!! She describes her life as a never ending nightmare she doesn’t want to live in and that this has broken her forever, she talks about the shock and denial and grief
But the tone is anger!! She is angry at her mother for choosing the world over her!!! for not coming back!!! for making her life this hell
The kind of vibe of
You put me here
You lied to me, you told me you would come home, I always feared you wouldn’t, and I was right and you lied to me
She is angry she has been denied something so fundamental and so basic as just having her mom
Something she was entitled to
But she acknowledges that she knows her mom didn’t plan to die, and that she was doing what she thought was right
But it undoubtedly fucked her over regardless
End of the day, her mom is still gone, and she still has to fight monsters and save the world as a teenager
The fact that this song’s chorus is about red (blood and death but also rage and anger) consumes her mind and she is constantly inching closer to giving in to the break inside her that she’s been given instead of the love of her mother
And ANOTHER!!! GREAT THING ABOUT THIS SONG
is that this is the only Instance of getting to hear anything at all from summer rose-ANYTHING AT ALL
Her expression of emotion is just so genuine and so from her core it gets a response from beyond the grave!!!
Oh and her response
It’s such GOLDDDDD
because as amazing as it is to show Ruby as not just this sweet little girl who’s happy but also sad about her moms death but gets through it to comfort other people like any other protagonist but as a teenager who’s grown up in a broken home because her mother died for a cause she chose over her children and she’s MAD about it
It’s even MORE amazing and interesting that in summers response we get an equally interesting unique expression of emotion!!! She’s not reduced to simply sad dead mom or tragically dead wife!!!
Throughout the ENTIRETY of the song not ONCE does she say that if she did it again she’d choose her family, she’d choose her daughters, she’d choose Ruby
She’d always leave them
So much agony and sorrow expressed in how she hates watching her daughter suffer
How she hates what her death has done to Ruby, how it’s affected her, the responsibilities she was intending to handle now thrusted onto Ruby
But not once does she say she regrets leaving
She just didn’t think she was going to die
Her first lines in the song as well as her first lines EVER are:
“I know you're broken down by anger and by sadness
You feel I left you in a world that's full of madness
Wish I could talk to you, if only for a minute
Make you understand the reasons why I did it”
‘I know you’ve been broken by the anger and grief I’ve left you with, I know this has ruined your way of looking at the world, I wish I could talk to you even just once more’
But not to comfort her, not to apologize for leaving, not to just be with her
To make her daughter understand why she did this
Why she left them like this
She sees it as something she had to do Ruby sees it as a choice she made
She wanted to save her daughter from the awful future that awaited them all and then ended up leaving her to handle that future alone
She doesn’t apologize for it, she doesn’t take it back
She just acknowledges how hurt Ruby is
And then begs her not to follow her
To escape the cycle summer chose again and again and again until it killed her
The fact that the ending
Is a back and forth argument between them
Is the coolest thing in the world
Just:
You're not the only one who needed me
I thought you understood
You were the one I needed
And you left me as I always feared you would
Would I change it if I could?
Like I just can’t it’s so perfect
“You weren’t the only person who relied on me don’t you get that?” “You weren’t the only person I had to rely on and I yes I always knew you’d still leave me” “would I have done it differently”
LOVE IT
Not ONCE does summer say she’d wouldn’t have done it!!!! She says she didn’t know she was going to die but never that knowing it would’ve stopped her!!! It’s so good!!!
And then the conclusion!!! The mutual agreement that it doesn’t matter anyway because it’s already done!!! They defied life and death to have a conversation and the conclusion is that all these feelings and emotions they want to express but can’t don’t matter anyway because there’s nothing they can do with the feelings anyway
“It’s all already happened
It doesn't matter how
The petals scatter now
Every nightmare just discloses
It's your blood that's red like roses
And no matter what I do
Nothing ever takes the place of you”
The fact that it’s still a duet when they say “it’s your blood that’s red like roses”!!!! Because the whole song is about their doomed deaths!!! That not only did summer leave her but she left her to die a terrible meaningless death right after her!!!!! ITS SOOO GOOD!!!!
“And no matter what I do Nothing ever takes the place of you” SHES TRIED!!! SHES BEEN TRYING!!! ITS SO SAD!!! ITS SO HOPELESS!!!
GODDDDDD I LOVE RUBY
My happy cheerful young girl protagonist that’s secretly at her core defined by an anger shes been given no outlet for and that’s a secret despite the fact she’s represented by. R E D
