#rwbyanalysis

Ruby Rose’s Petal Burst vs. Salem: A Display Post Analysis

Mechanics and Functionality

Ruby Rose’s Semblance, Petal Burst, enables her to disassemble her body into molecular components, negating mass, and reassemble at a chosen location, often leaving trails of red rose petals. As Penny Polendina notes in RWBY Volume 7, this distinguishes it from other speed Semblances, allowing Ruby to bypass obstacles and achieve near-flight capabilities. The petals can shift colors (e.g., red-to-blue with Weiss) and form clusters or slipstreams for tactical effect.

Application Against Salem

Petal Burst can transport others, as seen with Ruby carrying teammates like Nora or Penny. Salem, a physical entity despite her immortality, could theoretically be moved this way, as the Semblance’s non-lethal disassembly reassembles subjects intact. However, using it to “atomize” Salem permanently lacks canon evidence and would fail against her regeneration, which survives even the Long Memory’s nuke-like explosion that vaporizes matter at an atomic level.

Strategic and Tactical Implications

Against Salem, Petal Burst excels in evasion and team support, enabling Ruby to dodge attacks or reposition allies. Transporting Salem to isolate her is possible but futile due to her immortality and cunning. Ruby’s Semblance counters Salem’s divisive tactics indirectly by facilitating rapid teamwork, but it cannot negate her invulnerability.

Narrative and Thematic Role

Petal Burst’s rose petal motif ties to Ruby’s mother, Summer, symbolizing hope and resilience. Its evolution reflects Ruby’s growth as a leader, contrasting Salem’s goal of division. While it cannot defeat Salem, it strengthens Ruby’s role in uniting humanity against her, crucial for the gods’ judgment.

Conclusion

This time with teachers~ Stick around for part 2, when book-mentioned teachers and professor Peach will get faces from me!

I saw someone whose headcanon about Blake is that she is a lesbian instead of bi... And I didn't like it very much..."

I:Man, it's pretty obvious that Blake is bi, because she already seems to like Sun, and she now also likes Yang, so I'm sure she is bi! And Yang lesbians, because I never saw Yang feel or show any interest in any boy, just a girl! Like Blake, this is it for me!

The same thing with Ruby and Weiss for me, because I never saw Ruby like her friend who was closest in the beginning, who was Jaune, she never showed a feeling for him, so I think Ruby can be lesbian, and Weiss she already fell in love with Neptune once,...

And now it seems that she feels something for Ruby, just pay attention, I feel that Blake and Weiss are bis, and Ruby and Yang lesbians, I'm sure they do!

Ruby has never shown interest in Jaune (her closest friend!) And no other boy, and she cares more about Weiss than anyone else! I think that when Ruby met Esmerald she started to like her, there is a blog about it:

That's why I think Ruby is a lesbian, even if it's not confirmed!

SHE’S SNOW WHITE????

God, now I have to start preparing for the 7 Dwarves to show up. No, wait... does she have 7 colors on that sword?

One thing I kind of wish existed is Team WTCH having any real connection to Team RWBY.

In short:

Watts couldn’t care less about Team RWBY. He never even met them and probably wouldn’t give a rat’s fur hat about them. His true nemesis is Ironwood instead.

Tyrian targeted Ruby mostly because of his job under Salem’s orders. Although he was furious at her for cutting off his stinger, he ultimately became more of Qrow’s enemy due to the chaos he caused later on.

Hazel only fought Team RWBY because they got in his way. Like the others, his real opposition was Ozpin and, by extension, Oscar—far more than Team RWBY itself.

Cinder doesn’t care much about most of Team RWBY aside from Ruby. Ironically, Ruby sees her as a threat but has a stronger nemesis relationship with Cinder’s lackeys, Roman and especially Neo.

Cinder Fall is… obviously a complicated character for me. I’m genuinely mixed on her. I don’t completely hate her—she’s just very complicated.

The Good

Her intellect and combat prowess were genuinely impressive. She consistently outsmarted the heroes and absolutely demolished most of her opponents.

Her design and color scheme are still some of the coolest in the show.

Her early mystery was captivating. In Volumes 1–3, she felt like a real independent threat with her own skills, resources, and agenda. That made her stand out compared to Roman, Mercury, Adam, Emerald, or even Neo at the time.

She genuinely seemed to be building toward something bigger than what we ultimately got.

The Ruby vs. Cinder rivalry had massive potential and was being set up beautifully.

She worked great as an evil mirror/foil to RWBY, JNPR, and Ozpin’s circle through her own faction.

The Bad – Everything after Volume 3 Pretty much all of what made her compelling got stripped away and replaced with a smug, faux-competent lackey who’s obsessed with power. She was arrogant before, but it felt earned back then, and she at least had some entertaining dynamics with her allies. Now she’s played completely seriously, has zero redeeming or likable traits, and never evolves—which just makes her look pathetic.

Her once-elegant fighting style has been dumbed down, her strategic mind is basically gone, and Salem ended up inheriting all the clever traits Cinder used to have. She barely uses Maiden powers creatively, her relationships with Watts, Emerald, Mercury, and Neo devolved into her treating everyone like trash (so nothing fresh ever happens there), and the story just keeps repeating the same “Cinder wants power → Cinder screws up because of ego → Cinder throws a tantrum” cycle.

Even when she’s technically “exiled,” she’s still just following Salem’s orders in the most boring way possible. On top of that, aside from Jaune (and maybe Ruby), literally no one on Team RWBY or their extended friend group seems to care that she exists anymore.

This is my opinion on the RWBY villains. For Team WTCH, I wish we had actually seen them working together more… and I don’t mean just Cinder, Hazel, Tyrian, and Watts hanging out as friends. I mean actually seeing them collaborate to cause real trouble for the heroes. Yet they barely ever appear together on screen, which kind of makes the whole team feel superfluous.