History YMMV / ForgedDestiny

* RomanticPlotTumor: While not as bad as some works, the romance between Jaune and Blake formed a significant amount of Books 3 and 4. Given that the story is told entirely from Jaune's perspective, this meant most interactions in the story were between the two, to the exclusion of the other characters. The author has admitted it had gone further than he intended and he's been trying to be more inclusive of the rest of the cast in Book 5.
** Despite this intention, it's arguably worse in Book 5, as the majority of the story is centered around [[spoiler: interjecting conflict into Jaune and Blake's relationship. Comes to a head in the Magnis Arc as the entire plot seems to revolve around setting up Jaune and Blake to break up due to [[IdiotBall Jaune acting out too much.]]]] Most of the other regular characters are still regulated to extras.

* ShipToShipCombat: Due to Coeur's originally stated intent to make this a Lancaster story, but ending up with several scenes playing Jaune off with Blake, a split was caused in reader's opinions in who Jaune should ultimately be with by the end of the story [[spoiler:even after Jaune and Blake do become a couple.]]
** WordOfGod later [[spoiler:revealed that the romantic focus of the story had firmly shifted from Jaune/Ruby to Jaune/Blake after liking the latter's first few interactions too much to leave it at that. ]]
** Comes to a head by Book 8 where Jaune [[spoiler:assures Ruby that he and Blake are just friends and has no intention of pursuing her romantically any more]]. Thus the author's signal that he's given in to the loudest reader demands[[note]]Something he frequently admits is a mistake after it's done, but never stops doing regardless[[/note]] is the final nail in the coffin of the debate. [[spoiler:Much to the dismay of Knightshade fans, and rendering a lot of the story's efforts utterly pointless]].

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Blake is considered to be this to a fair degree. Books 1 through 4 helped to establish a lot of sympathy for her and implied an interesting and complex past for her while still highlighting her genuine strengths and capacity to be a great teammate, friend and lover. However from Book 5 onwards, she's begun to be stripped of a lot of the positive elements, and a poor handling of her character results in her being seen as a self righteous hypocrite who seems to expect others (Jaune especially) to treat her secrets with gentle hands, while she oftentimes is shown to have a disturbing lack of sympathy or understanding for others' issues or secrets (again, with Jaune). While the [[WordofGod author]] has gone out of his way to try to establish her reasons for doing so (some more reasonable than others), the questionable logic and reasoning combined with a lackluster showing in the story, Jaune's sometimes excessive self-deprecation mixed with borderline CharacterShilling of Blake's character has arguably only made her seem even more insufferable as a character.
** Made all the worse in Book 8, where [[spoiler:her abandoning the Guild in order to rush off and kill Raven on her own]], and for reasons that either were never hinted at, if not expressly contradicted, cement her as a {{Hypocrite}} of the worse possible kind.

* WhatAnIdiot: [[spoiler:When Salem is summoned in Book 8, all of the Hunters present know that: Raven wants to wish Salem into the physical world, that wish would have potentially apocalyptic repercussions, Salem can grant the wishes of those other than her summoner if she so chooses (as seen with both Jaune and Lisa), and that all of the Greycloaks have been disposed of by Raven. As such, you would think that one of them would ask Salem to kill Raven, sacrificing their life to put an end to the Greycloak threat once and for all. Instead, Blake, Pyrrha, and Yang all leave while Jaune makes his way to Ruby and the two simply watch as Raven successfully summons Salem fully into the world before subsequently dying.]]

** Keeps on going into Book 6 and as the story continues from there. With the story becoming rushed in order to finish things, thus leaving for little real exploration or development of the world or characters, and devolving into one of the worst written and cliched character conflicts [[spoiler:when Jaune's secret is revealed,]] an increasing laundry list of inconsistencies and contradictions, a number of {{Hand Wave}}s, {{Idiot Plot}}s, dubious reasoning to justify decisions both in and out of story, {{Plot Hole}}s and contrivances being developed frequently in later chapters solely for the sake of dramatic effect, a RomanticPlotTumor that's all but consumed reader's outlook of the story, a sudden back-and-forth change in narrative style, and finally [[spoiler: Jaune receiving a NextTierPowerUp that's downplayed and crippled to maintain his underdog status, while BigBad Raven is introduced as an invincible villain that can't be challenged due to her high level.]]

** Book 8 similarly takes a noticeable dip, as the entire basis of the Book [[spoiler:is predicated on Blake abandoning her friends to go on a suicide mission solo just to "save" her birth place.]] Aside from the abject stupidity as described above in IdiotPlot, the whole thing also is coming from a character who has expressed zero attachment or sentiment about where she's from (and has actually explicitly dismissed her origin as something she was getting away from), but is also from the character who has been the most vocal and consistently critical of making suicidally idiotic decisions throughout the story, unequivocally cementing her status as a {{Hypocrite}} of the highest order. When addressing the issue the author merely points to canon for justification rather than the story itself, implicitly acknowledging this fic to be untenable on its own merit.

** What a portion of the fanbase considers Book 5 to be due to its various [[IdiotPlot Idiot Plots]], HollywoodTactics, and [[spoiler:the breakup of Jaune and Blake due to juggling of the IdiotBall and various [[AsLethalAsItNeedsToBe plot contrived disasters.]]]]

* IdiotPlot:
** Arguably the Magnis Arc of Book 5. It consists of the Greycloaks intentionally exposing themselves to the Hunters Guild before they intended to leave, just to make sure Magnis had enough negativity before a siege, and the Hunters Guild focusing entirely on the Mistral army after said events, while doing little actual investigation once there. It raises the question of whether much of the Greycloak's acts were even necessary, or how different things would have played out if the Hunters had focused some of their attention on the obvious place.
** Book 8's very premise is this as it [[spoiler:has Blake rush off by herself to kill Raven on her own.]] Not only does everyone note the suicidal stupidity of this, but it also is being motivated for reasons that both fly in the face of the entire character, and was actually contradicted earlier in the story.
*** It's revealed that this isn't quite the case, in that she [[spoiler:was actually trying to warn a loyal retainer for her family of the danger he was in]], but the idiocy of her action still stands given that she's now [[spoiler:ensured that her entire guild is stuck deep in enemy territory with very little preparation and few allies.]]

* TooBleakStoppedCaring: It can be argued that the story suffers this starting from Book 5. While the first 4 Books of Forged Destiny has elements of darkness and each Book had a BittersweetEnding, there was usually still enough of a balance between the darker moments with moments of levity, worldbuilding and character building moments to counteract it. However, from Book 5 onwards, many of the arcs end with progressively darker and more bitter consequences with very little levity or time to relax and process the events properly in between. The end result is that the story feels like it's determined to drag Jaune through the dirt, breaking down his friendship with the Guild, putting him into an environment of extreme paranoia and distrust, killing off several people who he had come to respect and trust and overall undermining any sense of growth or levity for the sake of drama. The current arc in Book 8 only seems determined to continue this trend with [[spoiler: the reveal that [[WhamEpisode Blake's family might have been attacked and murdered by Ruby's mother, a person who for all intents and purposes was seen as a decent person with, at worst, a bad case of Chronic Hero Syndrome.]]]] [[ShockingSwerve This element stands out in particular since it does not add or change the circumstances between the characters or have any notable influence on the plot, coming off as extremely superfluous as a result.]]

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: It can be argued that the story suffers this starting from Book 5. While the first 4 Books of Forged Destiny has elements of darkness and each Book had a BittersweetEnding, there was usually still enough of a balance between the darker moments with moments of levity, worldbuilding and character building moments to counteract it. However, from Book 5 onwards, many of the arcs end with progressively darker and more bitter consequences with very little levity or time to relax and process the events properly in between. The end result is that the story feels like it's determined to drag Jaune through the dirt, breaking down his friendship with the Guild, putting him into an environment of extreme paranoia and distrust, killing off several people who he had come to respect and trust and overall undermining any sense of growth or levity for the sake of drama. The current arc in Book 8 only seems determined to continue this trend with [[spoiler: the reveal that [[WhamEpisode Blake's family might have been attacked and murdered by Ruby's mother, a person who for all intents and purposes was seen as a decent person with, at worst, a bad case of Chronic Hero Syndrome.]]]] [[ShockingSwerve This element stands out in particular since it does not add or change the circumstances between the characters or have any notable influence on the plot, coming off as extremely superfluous as a result.]]

* CompleteMonster: [[Characters/RWBYRavenBranwen Raven Branwen]], the leader of Greycloaks, is a [[AdaptationalVillainy murderous sociopath]] obsessed with becoming the "apex predator" of the entire existence. With that goal in mind, she resolves to summon and kill Salem, uncaring for the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt disastrous consequences this plan could entail]]. In order to gain enough power to fulfill her perceived destiny, Raven kills numerous people across Remnant and eventually murders her own brother for the sake of gaining more experience. Once she deems herself strong enough to defeat Salem, Raven attempts to torture Ruby to generate enough negativity for the ritual to be performed. [[spoiler:When that fails, she instead decides to brutally slaughter all her followers, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness seeing no further use for them]], an act which allows her to finally summon Salem into the material realm, endangering all mankind with extinction.]] Uncaring for anyone other than herself, Raven ends up killing thousands of people and causing untold destruction in her quest for power.

** The revelation of most of the Hunters' Levels, [[PlotHole as they receive so little focus, their growth rate not being shown due to the First Person Narrative, and they aren't thrown in as many specificly dangerous situations as Jaune has throughout the story,]] that their Levels once revealed come off as mostly made up on the spot.

** Another occurs over [[{{Shipping}} who Jaune should ultimately end up with romantically.]] [[spoiler:The author stating that the original pairing was supposed to be Jaune/Ruby, as seen in chapter one's author's note, but was changed to Jaune/Blake as early as the first five chapters without the previous note ever being amended has only made things worse. It has reached the point that Coeur al'Aran is considering putting up a poll to either determine the pairing or modify it in some way.]]

* ShockingSwerve: The revelation in Book 8, where Blake reveals [[spoiler:Ruby's mother, Summer, lead an attack on her home, and personally killed her father, Ghira.]] This coming after several years in-story of Blake and Ruby interacting with not a single hint of tension from this fact, [[spoiler:as the similarities between Ruby and Summer are too stark to be brushed off as Blake not knowing they were related,]] is an example of a questionable twist with no foreshadowing support or story justification behind it.

* CompleteMonster: [[ItsAllAboutMe Raven Branwen]], the leader of Greycloaks, is a [[AdaptationalVillainy murderous sociopath]] obsessed with becoming the "apex predator" of the entire existence. With that goal in mind, she resolves to summon and kill Salem, uncaring for the [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt disastrous consequences this plan could entail]]. In order to gain enough power to fulfill her perceived destiny, Raven kills numerous people across Remnant and eventually murders her own brother for the sake of gaining more experience. Once she deems herself strong enough to defeat Salem, Raven attempts to torture Ruby to generate enough negativity for the ritual to be performed. [[spoiler:When that fails, she instead decides to brutally slaughter all her followers, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness seeing no further use for them]], an act which allows her to finally summon Salem into the material realm, endangering all mankind with extinction.]] Uncaring for anyone other than herself, Raven ends up killing thousands of people and causing untold destruction in her quest for power.