was thinking about RWBY again - in wake of volume 10 being officially greenlit - and i happened upon a realisation of the difference between Ruby and Yang that might explain something of their differing opinions and attitudes in volume 7 and onwards.
now, please keep in mind that i haven't watched the series in a while, so this is mostly going off of what i remember.
so, in RWBY volume 4, the team is split up and going their separate ways. Weiss is with her family, Blake is going to her family, Yang is with her dad...and Ruby is walking towards Haven with Jaune and Nora and Ren. now, in this volume, there are quite a few realisations and growth opportunities for the team. Weiss ends up leaving her family legacy behind entirely, Blake understands and chooses to fight for the White Fang as they used to be, and Yang finally abandons her chase of Raven.
and Ruby's just...marching on. which is a terrible coping mechanism, but well, that is kind of a staple of her character.
now this is all well and good, HOWEVER, what i specifically want to talk about in this volume is the contrast between Yang and Ruby's paths.
in previous volumes, we're kind of encouraged to see Yang as the more worldly of the two sisters. she goes clubbing and has tons of friends; Ruby, contrarily, is more introverted and far more comfortable with weapons than people. so this paints a picture of Yang as more immersed in the criminal underworld, while Ruby is more naive and positive and unaware of the more sinister underbelly of Vale.
HOWEVER this is flipped in Volume 4, and i find it really interesting.
because while Yang was previously shown to be the more worldly of the sisters, in this volume, she's the one who stays home while Ruby disappears towards Haven. she's with her dad, in a safe place, and haunted by one individual who did something absolutely horrific to her - but it's just one person who's haunting her.
Ruby, on the other hand, is traveling through the country just after a devastating attack on Vale and Beacon. so Ruby is now the more worldly of the two sisters - she's seeing bandit attacked villages that have no survivors, and villages that are being attacked by Grimm with no huntsmen to help. and she, Jaune, Ren, and Nora are doing this entirely alone. even when Qrow shows up, he's injured, and ultimately becomes a burden on the kids as they have to now carry him and look for medicine before he dies.
even when they get to Haven, there isn't any hope. Leo is a coward, and a traitor, and almost succeeds in helping Salem win.
so i think that this is a very interesting dichotomy between Ruby and Yang. the so-called 'worldly' sister has been shown one horrible person, and although she understands that there is a criminal underground, she hasn't really been personally impacted by it. Ruby, on the other hand, has been witness to entire villages being destroyed or coming under threat of destruction, as well as being personally betrayed by an authority figure who she was meant to be able to trust.
now, they've been switched. Yang is now more sheltered, Ruby more exposed to what humanity can be like.
then it comes to Volume 7. when Ironwood asks them whether the lamp is able to be used, and Ruby lies. Yang doesn't agree with this, nor does Blake - which is where the differences between the sisters really comes into play. because Ruby, now, is intimately aware that she can't actually trust anyone, and is very clearly wary of trusting Ironwood after seeing the state that Mantle is in. Yang, on the other hand, is still a bit sheltered despite everything that's happened to her, and doesn't have Ruby's experience with betrayal.
i'm not entirely sure what conclusion to come to here, but i just thought it was very interesting how, ultimately, Yang is the more sheltered one while Ruby, despite her initial naivete, has actually seen more of what humanity is like.
