There are a lot of comparisons out there of Adam being the abusive ex-boyfriend kind of character even made by crwby but I don’t think Adam and Blake were ever really in that kind of relationship.

I don’t think Adam was every really in love with Blake and Blake wasn’t ever really in love with Adam. I think Adam used her as a crutch to deal with his crippling Inferiority Superiority complex and Blake likewise “used” him as an object of worship and not an actual person. That isn’t to say Adam isn’t crazy or  abusive, it’s the love/boyfriend-girlfriend part I’m questioning form both sides.

Adam insecurity is obvious in so many ways but the most obvious is his brand. Adam is never seen without covering it. Not in private or with people he trusts, never. Even when he took off his mask in the forest he immediately covers it with a black blindfold and continues on that way as he’s all alone, following team rwby through the wilderness and probably only encounters Grimm. His entire character song is Adam convincing others and himself he’s the “warrior” they need to lead them to salvation, that he’s their champion. His entire character in v4 and 5 is about power, control and how he falls apart when he has neither.

Adam is the only villain who has literally no one close to him, even Roman had Neo, Emerals and Mercury have each other and arguably, Cinder. Salem has her faction, even fucking Jacques has his son. Adam has no one, only in his character short is his relationship with Sienna truly revealed but even there, it’s snippets and it’s clear that Sienna is kind of manipulating him into turning out the way she wants him to. (Although no any of the other examples aren’t exactly healthy, they have a lot more emphasis relative to their respective screen times). Before or after there’s no one shown to be particularly close to him at all.

Characters with Inferiority Superiority complex and very little people close to them will often put others down to make themselves feel better, Blake referrences this when she says “he was making her feel small”.

“But!” you say “He called her my darling and my love”. Yes, he did and he also uttered the most over the top lines possible for an abusive ex. I believe adam knew Blake was in love with him (or something like that as I’ll get to) and was using that against her, indeed to break her mentally. But I don’t think Adam ever truly loved Blake, he needed the stability and worship she brought for his crippling insecurities and just as crippling ego.

Yang says something along the lines of “the person you were pretending to be.” but I don’t really think Adam was consiously always trying to pretend to be something just for Blake. I think his descent into the person he is/was today was slow as the character short obviously tried to show. Adam started out as the person Blake saw, he just fell from grace. And Blake idolised him, Nevemore uses the word “infatuated” and Blake herself says she was blind to his faults, saw him as justice at first but slowly started to see him “for who he truly was”. Adam started out as justice and slowly descended into “spite”. Blake just didn’t really want to see that at first, she was too busy propping him up onto a pedestral of the saviour. She didn’t make promises to the man “Adam was pretending to be” she was making them to who Adam used to be and to the person she had a hero complex about. 

In that sense, I don’t think Blake ever really loved Adam, but rather the person she wanted him to be in the same way Adam doesn’t love Blake now, but clings to his version of her. And it was never real love to begin with but more of a very unhealthy co-dependency. 

Apperantly the RWBY fandom hates adam taurus and after that humiliation thing in vol 5 he really let me down but god his character song shows that he could have been soo much more.

If they’d make him like his character song suggests he’d be so much better?

I mean, we know Adam’s goal is to make humans basically slaves to the faunus and the fact that only now we get a real reason on why he’s that extreme and what his past is semi like is a real fucking shame and the song shows us a lot of what his characters was supposed to be? But they trampled all over that? It’s like it’s his character draft and the version we have now is a watered down one

Surrounded by weaklings Pathetic and oppressed Satisfied to gnaw on scraps Afraid to leave the nest

This part fits the Adam as he is quite well, he believes he’s the only one who can lead the faunus and everyone else is too weak or afraid to really step up.

You'll see I'm their hero I'll be lionized I have the strength to do what's needed Unify our people with no compromise

 I Love this last bit “unify our people with no compromise”, this would have been such an amazing thing to have seen on this show? But we only get other character’s views on how the white fang will definitely follow him until volume 5 where he loses their loyalty by, you know, murdering half of them?? They made him kill faunus, the very people his entire character has been about bc?? they wanna show he has rage issues i guess? Just throw his goddamn motivation outta the window people!

Champion of truth until they recognize Lead them to salvation and regain our lives

Look at that, Adam wants the faunus to “regain their lives” this guy’s entire life’s been about that. Is it a god/hero complex too?? Yes it is!! The show basically took his god complex and made that defining character trait his only one (beside his obsession with Blake)

Behold your flaccid leaders Too weak to take the prize Replace them with a warrior It's time we mobilize Depose the feeble cowards Heed this battle cry Vengeance on the human filth The time is now, we'll rise!

His entire goal, summed up in this part, get the “coward leaders” out of the way and lead his people to vengeances (and justice according to his point of view) but instead of doing that, he spends more resources on Blake than his life goal? I understand that his obsession with her is a defining trait it’s there so that Blake can have a connection with this villain, their encounters have much more weight this way. And him making wrong decisions influences by his hatred/obsession with Blake isn’t the part that’s wrong, it’s that he only ever seems to make wrong decision because of it. They want him to be an ineffectual leader, that’s fine, plenty of good villains aren’t at their best in a leadership position I just think it would have been a lot more powerful and fitting if some of those reasons actually stemmed from his actual motives. *spoilers!!* they could have made him more obsessed with the SDC, he was already pretty hateful of them but the fact is, he sees Weiss and does not care?? for some reason? His hatred for the SDC is not truly shown, it’s maybe mentioned that the white fang seem to focus more on SDC since he stepped up as leader but that’s just weak. And again, him killing faunus and not really caring about it is so out of character, you might argue that his descent into madness is a result but the implication is that his descent is from the humiliation and Blake but it’s never suggested killing his fellow faunus is a big reason as well?

I am the path to reclamation This world will have no peace 'til our dream's realized No mercy no compassion our fate's justified Time to turn the table on who's tyrannized

The one thing RWBY did so fucking well is the scar reveal, it was chilling, it showed us a lot of his motivation in basically half a second and the timing was good as well, though they could have alluded to his past earlier to establish his motivations. They obviously didn’t because in his never ending quest for blake revenge, it didn’t really fit in anywhere yet, if they’d made his character more about his fight for the faunus there would have been an opportune moment for this much earlier but well.

I saw a lot of people speculating when Adam got that brand Some think he got it while he was fighting for the white fang while others think he got it when he was much younger I believe the latter is true 

The first obvious clue is what he says to Blake in Volume 6 ep 11

“ People have hurt me long before we met. All sorts of people, all sorts of ways.”

I just watched this vid on the previous ep and one point he makes really stuck with me as I’ve seen the point on reddit as wel:

Where the fuck does Adam’s fatal flaw in overusing his semblance come from?????

Not only that, apperantly, he can also only use his semblance with his sword????? Why? If he can channel it into objects he could literally use Blush in the fight? Also...He still has Blush once he realizes Yang has Wilt and she throws it over the cliff (lmao) while Blush is also a fu-cking rifle, we conveniently forget Adam still has a weapon and make him go for Blake’s weapon for symbolism!

Adam doesn’t over-use his semblance at any time in any fight we’ve seen him in except maybe this last one, where he dishes out like three moonslices, the most we’ve ever seen him use? In the black trailer, I’m not 100% certain but he only used it on the gigantic spider robot? During his fight with Blake in Volume 3 He dispatches of grimm and humans without moonslice, fights Blake without Moonslice and then uses it one (1) time on Yang to cut off her arm. In his character short he uses it ONCE when he sees some dude firing at Grisha. Does he use his sword to deflect/absorb power constantly??? YES, so does everyone fucking else, Yang absorbs literally every hit she takes?? Oh wait, they wanted him to be more of foil to Yang! That’s fine, just don’t pull it out of your ass -_-

They needed justification for Yang and Blake being able to take out Adam, even though Blake had even less aura left than Adam, Adam had been charging moonslices his entire fight AND the moonslice he does fire at Yang mysteriously does like zero damage (oh no the arm has *gasp* scratches!). They could have just made him, losing his control a fatal weak point, maybe even his fucking lack of depth perception (as in, maybe the mask covered that like Maria’s eyes) but NO, I guess, coming up with a decent expanation for why a capable fighter like Adam, with more experience fighting actual people than Blake and Yang (seeing as he’s also 4 years older) is too much to ask. I’m not saying they could not have won, I’m saying why they won is weak as shit, might as well have been “the power of friendship” and started a my little pony song playing in the background.

I made some post about how I wanted a faunus subplot to be handled in V7 of rwby but by doing so I began questioning the faunus as a whole in rwby.

Why do the faunus exist in rwby? Why does the White Fang? Why is there a hint of a racism allegory subplot that’s never used?

I don’t need to make any arguments about how rwby utterly fails to show any faunus discrimination that matters in the show. Plenty of people on the internet have done so and it really boils down to: roosterteeth keeps telling you that they’re mistreated but shows you almost the complete opposite. Faunus are never discriminated against in the school, a faunus fucking runs a main school in Mistral, there’s faunus in leadership positions, there’s faunus just walking around, no one cares when Blake reveals herself a faunus. Literally no one cares. To get this in perspective: Change the faunus into what they’re supposed to be an allegory for: Imagine a histroy setting where a subplot is slavery/racism against black or any other nonwhite people. But the black people are treated equally, they get leadership positions, you never see any black person suffer from racism, they just tell you: slavery/racism is happening. And then, the black people, just decide to start murdering people to get equality I guess. And instead of being painted as the victims they are, they’re painted as terrible murderers and criminals. Exactly what they’re being accused of and discriminated against for. 

The White Fang exists, and the reason for their extremism at the start is weak as shit. Why do they exist? Why does roosterteeth make an extremist group like this??? They paint the White Fang in a terrible light, they’re extremists for no good reason, they murder people for the equality they already have but you’re told they don’t and they’re never seen as morally grey, only as evil. Why didn’t they just make them some evil group then? Because Cinder and salem already have that schtick I guess?

If you make an allegory to racism, if you want to make your world deal with racism and want to base it off of real racism in the real world, Why deliberately do such a bad job of it? They want the racism allegory card but they don’t want to do the work. they don’t wanna put in the work to put in some scenes or important and morally grey characters. 

BUT! What about Ilia. Yeah what about her? The worst thing that happened to Ilia, was her parents dying in a mining accident and the worst part of that, is that this is the second biggest actual show of racism in the entire fucking series. Ilia is the Remnant equivalent of white passing, in this world she’d be privileged and her parenents died I guess? Which again, we’re told by the way, not shown. Ilya could have been interesting, a lot more interesting, had the show already established this racism properly but it hasn’t and Ilya’s (and basically every white fang members) motivations fall flat.

And then: Adam. Why give Adam that scar/brand? Why if you’re never gonna bring it up again. Blake and Yang tell everyone what happened on the ship and the only reaction we get from Weiss is “I’m sorry you went through that but I’m happy you had Yang” yeah okay so, I guess the brand wasn’t relevant then. Why would you give the person you’ve been making an abuser, you’ve been making inexcusably evil and horrid throughout the show, who you’ve never shown in any good light a fucking faunus??? Why would you give Adam the White Fang angle? Why what’s the fucking point? Adam could have been just an abusive person, wouldn’t have ever needed to be a fucking faunus because you’re not going to explore any faunus subplot properly? He could have been some angsty piece of shit gangsta boy and it would have changed nothing. Put things into perspective: Imagine Adam being PoC, the only PoC in the entire fucking show to be shown having been abused and mistreated. And the PoC is the most horrible, psychopathic murderous scumbag in existence. Getting the picture?

Now, you might be thinking: “They wanted Bake’s personal story to be interesting and to tie it in with the rest of the world properly.” Listen to me, Yang has a fucking great arc, she has a fucking great backstory and motivation, she wants to find her fucking mom. And guess fucking what? Raven is the Spring maiden!!! She ties into the plot perfectly and her bandits and role are small scale enough to do properly without needing the hard work and consideration a faunus subplot needs. So raven feels a lot better done and the same goes for Weiss. Weiss’ entire backstory and arc is the Heiress under the thumb of her abusive father. The SDC is much better established than the White Fang because it’s just a company. It doesn’t need much, some referrences to it, a logo here and there, some people recognizing Weiss as the heiress and boom, you’ve got it all set up. But the faunus subplot they’re trying for need so much more than that and the problem is they treat it exactly the same as Yang and Weiss’ subplot but it doesn’t work that way.

Rwby would have been perfectly fine without the White fang or the faunus. But they wanted to give Blake Cat Ears and they wanted to be angsty about it yet they didn’t want to do the research necessary to pull it off properly. They had the premise, they had the possibility and chance but they didn’t want to take it because that would be too much work.

Also we can’t argue with the fact that a) he did save the entire altean race and culture, it still exists because of him and b) He found a way to get unlimited quintessence and had everyting gone according to plan, this would have definitely ensured peace for the galaxy

He’s still a mass murdering sociopath with daddy issues and some quintessence insanity added on top tho

I’m relatively certain that vld is not gonna go on the path I’m gonna talk about but instead is gonna go with the redemption equals death or came back wrong strategy (warning to you all, I love using tropes from tvtropes, i practically live by scrolling thro it)

First let’s look at why Lotor can’t be the hero he wants to be

Lack of empathy. This one is pretty obvious. Lotor realizes that his actions were wrong, that sucking alteans dry is not a right thing to do or at least, is gonna be frowned upon (”now I know what you all must think of me”). What he doesn’t understand is why they can’t see that in the end, it’s for the greater good. He doesn’t know why Alura reacts the way she does when she learns about it or why she understandably, lashes out. The ultimate reason for this is because although he loves the concept of alteans, his altean side and of their culture, he doesn’t love the individuals. He doesn’t love any individuals up until this point because fundamentally, he doesn’t know what love is, which brings us to the second point: upbringing

Galra culture: Zarko practically sucked empires dry just for the power and because he liked doing it. Same for Haggar. The Galra empire was already built on a warrior’s way (the story Dayak tells us proves that) and a rigid class system. Lotor may detest his galra side but he’s still half galra and he was raised in the galra empire. This is not to take away the fact that he’s a grown man and makes his own decisions. However, what we consider to be ethical is very much influenced by our environment. You don’t have to look at aliens to know that. Of course, killing people seems to be a universally abhorrent thing to do, the galra probably don’t consider it very noteworthy. Victory or death is a phrase that is repeated multiple times, by both Lotor and his ‘governess’, if the galra live by that standard, they will probably expect everyone else to do so too, if they’re honourable. Meaning if you get killed, you just aren’t worthy or honourable. What Lotor did is inexcusable, I promise this isn’t some apologetic lotor thing.

Lack of genuine bonds. Going back to the keith parallel I mentioned in a previous post, Voltron clearly shows that Keith had actual bonds with people for the most part of his life. His father loved him, there’s no evidence against it, Shiro saw something in him and always supported him and later on he has the voltron team and even later on, he gets to spend two years with his mother to reconcile and realise that she has always loved him more than anything in the world. Lotor doesn’t have any of those things, he doesn’t realise what the alteans mean to allura, not really. Like I said, he’s in love with the concept of being altean, he wants to be accepted by them (i don’t believe being worshipped was part of his plan but rather, he took what he could get and he wouldn’t recognize actual affection if it smacked him in the face back then) but he truly doesn’t actually know them. Studying a culture and actually being a prt of it is something entirely different. Lotor never formed any substantial bonds with the alteans because 1) he probably couldn’t and had to leave a lot and 2) he doesn’t trust anyone, not even his own generals. it’s pretty clear that whoever he made friends with, somewhere at the back of his mind, there was always the possibility of betrayal no matter what. 

Plot neccesity: Look, they needed a big evil reveal. Lotor hadn’t done anything truly evil or vile before this. He chased voltron a bit, tricked them into getting some space comet for him, killed Narti because she was spying on him and... conquered some planet peacefully,I guess? (he got throk tortured but the protagonists didn’t know bout that, also, getting a galra tortured isn’t going to tell the audience how bad he is, it’s more or less foreshadowing that indeed, he’s not as nice as he presents himself but it’s not truly evil. Nothing that warrants the need for redemption) And ofc for 80s nostalgia, Lotor couldn’t be a genuinely good person (not that i’ve watched the 80s version)

What a redemption arc really needs to work out and not feel cheap

Genuine remorse: you’d think this is fairly obvious but more often than not, this part is just left out.The heroes encounter a bigger, scarier big bad and then the kinda murderer comes in, helps everyone, in the end, all is either forgiven or the murderer dies. Lotor needs to realise why what he did was wrong and own up to it. Realise where he went wrong, both in his thought process and obviously, in the actual act, and decide to do better. For this to work, the second point needs to happen

Feelings for Allura: Lotor needs to figure out what he actually feels for Allura and what she feels for him. (or felt for him lmao) Was it really love, or something meant to be? Or just two people, desperately latching on to each other for different and not always healthy reasons. He needs to really understand that what he did to her was wrong, for that he needs to realise why she was angry. If his feelings for her are genuine, it would make this realisation easier, if a person really means that much to you, you’ll do the work. Most of all, under no circumstances can Lotor feel like she owes it to him to forgive him or like they’re still meant to be regardless of her own opinion. As soon as he goes down this road, seeing Allura not as a person but a destiny, an inevitabilty, it’s over. Allura does not owe Lotor anything, their relationship is over unless they both decide that it’s the best course of action. This is pretty much a holy thing and even if allura rejects him, if Lotor is truly on his redemption path, he’ll continue walking it even if lotura isn’t in it. 

Time. I’m very certain they’ll at least give him that, unless, they’re going for the redemption equals death, in which case he’ll magically appear at the end or if he’s already been introduced in the came back wrong have some kind of epiphany and sarcifice himself. Neither of those are very appealing because they’ve been done before, we’ve seen it, it’s boring. Lotor needs time, to actually get his ducks in a row and to check of the first two items on this list if they don’t give him time, it will seem superficial and undeserved and fake.

Big bad: This is something that they’ll definitely give the voltron team at least. A big bad to end all the big bads, an evil, much like zarkon but prefferably, much stronger, more ruthless and even more evil. Without a big bad to ty it all together, the voltron team has no reason to try and accept his redemption, not does Lotor have any chance at actually redeeming himself. Because just admitting you were wrong and saying you’re sorry, does not a redemption make, unfortunately..