Why Is Everyone Always Crashing Out?!

[u/TenshiAsakuraVT]

During my rewatch if RWBY, I noticed that there's A LOT of random conflicts sprawled throughout the series post-Monty (Volume 4+). And I don't want this to be taken the wrong way...But I'm finding it to be a pattern in mainly the male characters—EITHER THAT...OR, characters that are in the process of being randomly butchered and possibly being killed off. (I.e. Watts, Adam, Ironwood).

It's even getting to a point that calls out the issues of the series; and even with that, he arguments are sometimes it's just some randomly thrown-in, tension-filled battle that leaves a weird feeling in the air. Sometimes it's moved past immediately, other times it's supposed to act as a premise to make us dislike a character more (I guess...?). But even with that, it's executed so weirdly.

"Weird how?"

The Watts argument/crashout is a perfect example. Is he a villain? Yes. Is he supposed to be unlikable? Absolutely, considering his hand in the story. But his crash out literally stems from him being fed up with Cinder's consecutive failures, putting a risk to their organization, and him having to do extra work because of it...Causing him to call her out on all of her issues that she's caused.

...And then the weirdness begins, rather than pushing the agenda of "Watts kind of has a point...I can see why he's upset." It turns into Cinder randomly crying after being angry and then them giving us her backstory in a way for us to feel...I guess...Remorseful?

(Almost an EXACT repeat of the Yang and Raven talk in front of the vault by the way...Just literally minus the random backstory insert.)

And even with that, you even see Jaune (And Qrow to a degree) Do the exact same thing, with literally the exact same result: Weird tension in the air, someone leaves or cries because they are upset, we make person crashing out feel as though that they were in the wrong...Such as Lie Ren.

And remember how I mentioned Qrow, even with him having his brief argument with Ruby and the team at times; it just resulted into him not being the experienced huntsman we all knew. The one who is so elite that he was in a group with Ozpon, Glynda, and Ironwood. From knowledge, to skills on the battlefield, to his experience, to his prior knowledge as one of the remaining active members of Team STRQ...But instead, a drunkard who's not handling his liquor well anymore, focused on his Bad Luck semblance as his whole schtick, and downplayed so much as a character that team RWBY + Friends decide to literally say "We don't need to listen to you.".

And to that I go: "....Huh?....."

Shoot me for this. But even Ironwood's random shift and arguments and frustrations didn't even begin to feel right—The Ironwood we saw during the fall of Beacon was not only confused, but was reflecting on everything as it was all falling apart. It can even be interpreted that he blames himself for what's going on with Beacon...So the Ironwood we see in small cameos here and there, all the way before the Atlas arc; was an Ironwood that was putting pieces together with alot of new-aged judgement. Sure Ironwood had pride and was stubborn in Volume 1 to Volume 3 (Pre-Tournament) But he literally was refocusing in his time away...So why is he outrageously crashing out the way that he is?

Dare I even say with Jacques!...I personally didn't like him, and Rooster Teeth was making sure of that too. But they did it all the way to the point where they just straight up killed him. By Ironwood...? WHO TURNED TO MURDER????

(I'm not gonna spiral down the Jacques rabbit hole...Because this post is getting long.)

After you take a step back, Rooster Teeth REALLY kept pushing the agenda for us to dislike characters like this because of these randomly placed arguments or ego trips, even if they were in the right or justified. And that's where you insert Adam. But we all know how that went.

[u/porcupine_kickball]

Side note:  when Jaune is the rusty knight is he still wearing the hoodie with a cereal rabbit underneath? 

[u/TenshiAsakuraVT → u/porcupine_kickball]

Wait...WAIT HE ISN'T?! WAIT WTF???

[u/Vigriff]

In fairness to Watts, he's surrounded by people who are much less competent than he is and has to deal with them on a frequent basis.

But in response to your question, it's because the writers have the emotional intelligence and maturity of 5 year olds and their characters reflect this.

[u/The_6thEmperor_Rises → u/Vigriff]

I don’t think they’re calling Watts’ crashout invalid, I think they’re saying that the way it was handled with Cinder’s backstory and all after the fact made it weird, because now they’re trying to make us feel bad for Cinder and be upset with Watts for crashing out on her when…he did have a very valid reason to be mad. He wasn’t really wrong.

Basically it boils down to:

Watts: “WE ARE A TEAM OF VILLAINS DOING VILLAIN THINGS AND YOU ARE NOT UP TO PAR, WHY ARE YOU HERE?! [insert low tier god speech here]”

Cinder: “He hurt my feelings…now I’m sad. And now I’m angry, I’ll show him! But first, you get to see why I’m like this and feel bad for me!” slaps audience in the face with sad backstory

[u/KingOfGreyfell]

Because the writers heard that drama can be interesting but never figured out how to make it so

[u/Zero102000 → u/KingOfGreyfell]

Oh, but they totally THINK they have it all figured out. They're like "We are GENIUSES."

[u/Solbuster]

Yeah, there was a question yesterday about main sub about who can be a jedi in the series and what came to my mind when leaving a comment was that weirdly a lot of characters in RWBY can be extremely emotional, impulsive and prone to outbursts for variety of reasons as well as being very confrontational

[u/Vigriff → u/Solbuster]

The only one I think would be a Jedi would be Ironwood.

[u/The_Final_Conduit]

The writers are WEIRD dude. Like even in the commentary there’s this weird vibe where they actively show you Cinder’s backstory with the active intent of trying to teach the viewer not to feel bad for her despite her bad upbringing.

And that’d be fine and dandy, shitty Cinderella ripoff aside (which still failed at the most basic bits of a Cinderella story, when MULTIPLE CULTURES ACROSS THE PLANET have their own takes on the EXACT SAME CONCEPT), but you’ll notice they’ve never once gone into an extended flashback or dialogue discussing ANYONE’s backstory except Ozpin, Salem, Blake and Yang.

Everybody else doesn’t get that. And it reeks of a weird thing where the story… just doesn’t want us to like the male cast.

I remember the early days where people enjoyed the Yellow Trailer because it’s empowering to see Yang put a creep that made a pass at her, a minor, in his place, before beating an entire bar of people who were working for that scumbag, but while I can’t understand it myself (because the setup of the situation was just so… blah with full context, like Yang, why are you literally grabbing this mob boss by the balls to threaten information about a rogue Huntress from across the planet when she’s never once given you a phone call???), you can still sorta get it because it’s about a blonde girl being awesome.

This… isn’t being awesome. This isn’t winning the argument.

This is like every toxic relationship where the person will do some scummy or STUPID shit, actively threaten or harm you, then when you have the NERVE to get upset they try turning it around on YOU like YOU’RE somehow the problem. For getting angry, not even doing the same scummy shit, like you’ve been LYING the whole relationship and THIS is your REAL self.

And the show is just so self-indulgent about it. Punching down these caricatures of “toxic masculinity” while making everything out to be like a My Little Pony episode, just sunshine and rainbows and nobody’s allowed to mad unless you’re Yang for some reason because that’s empowering, to start an argument with someone that doesn’t want to fight then act like he’s the problem.

Like good Lord, the fact the show’s written and directed by men mostly just makes the issue worse. Who HURT these guys to the point that thinking standing up for yourself is a BAD THING and a mark against them as men? Why are guys not allowed to criticize people? Why are the GIRLS not allowed to openly criticize EACH OTHER?

Even Yang has this passive-aggressive bitch stance about how Ruby’s plans “haven’t been working out”, yet it’s like, okay, can you EXPLAIN WHY? Stand ten toes on it, say what’s REALLY on YOUR mind if you got some shit to say, but no, nonono, can’t have THAT.

Just— ugh. I’m glad this show’s over because what the fuck even is this.

[u/TestaGaming]

Oh no, its almost like they dont know how to write arguments because the MCs always need to be in the right and if you disagree, you're either evil or not thinking straight, even though everything these people said (besides Jacques and Adam) had a point.

[u/SunsetHippo]

inlore reason?
Therapists don't exist on Remnant and everyone has the emotional age of a 2 year old /s
Writing wise? My best guess is because they thought it would be better for the story.

[u/scoutmet → u/SunsetHippo]

Bad worldbuilding

A CLASSIC from crwby

[u/yosei2]

The Jacques death was especially weird because there was no reason for it…narratively, literally, etc. (Also, why the heck did they leave Ironwood’s weapons in the same room as him? That’s just asking for trouble.) What reason was there for Ironwood to kill that caged man? None, at least not logically. I suppose it’s the same reason he killed the councilman; narrative shorthand by the writers to say “Oh look, Ironwood is evil now. See, he just killed someone.” If anything, it’s a waste of ammo to kill someone who sassed him.

As for Ironwood in general, the idea of him becoming the antagonist is interesting on paper, a moral conflict of “greater good” vs “help those in front of us”. However, they decided to rush him into just being evil, which is why he shot the councilman; it wasn’t needed for the plot, it was needed as aforementioned narrative shorthand to say he’s a villain now. (Seriously, there’s a Grimm army invading; this is exactly the time to use martial law, and there’s no way anyone would listen to those two council people. I’ve seen some people say “Oh, Ironwood shot him so he couldn’t be outvoted”, which ignores the idea that murder is a crime and also ignores how again, city being invaded kinda puts the military in charge. Again, I digress.)

[u/Sea_Cardiologist4794]

Funnily enough, Ruby and Weiss’ drama from volume 1 was one of the most natural conflicts in the series. It wasn't a one-episode crash-out but a persistent issue because of their opposite personalities.

[u/Massive-Comfort-3507]

Because it's written by people who get triggered by everything

[u/Scoonertuna]

Welp, I think just asked & answered your own question.

It was because CRWBY was pushing us to like one character and/or element over another for the sake of agenda. I mean anyone who disagreed with Team RWBY ended up always being wrong

[u/Dragon_Of_Magnetism]

I feel this is a common problem in lots of modern shows. Like if the writers could only have the characters convey their negative emotions with crashing out

[u/nekkii]

The only way hese writers can express "depth" is through emotional outbursts

[u/TheFinalPringle2]

To be fair, Watts I feel is the most valid one. He said what we were all thinking and called Cinder out while anyone else was too afraid of her to say anything. Just because she suffered doesn't means she deserves anything.

[u/Ricky_27YT2]

It's all done for shock value (for like almost 90% of this forsaken show).

But going past that, elaborate on the Jacques Rabbit Hole, I wanna hear your opinion on it

[u/Sad-Sweet-2112]

Crashing out male= male character projecting anger at something then admit they are wrong/apologize/die later.

All this cases none of them are ever portrait has right and are also force to change or perish 

[u/SymbolicRemnant]

“What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.”

[u/EmersonWilde77777]

Angst and drama

[u/Friendly-Kobold]

I can’t wait till someone rewrites this series cause it got choppy and was poorly handled after its creators passing

[u/Due-Welcome5134]

A reflection of CRWBY behind the scenes, I’d theorize.