Fanfic / Arcanum

Ruby Rose, Wildmage ^note art by Z-ComiX

Living day to day as a messenger in the slums, Ruby thought her life was set out for her. But when a mysterious meeting with an Arcanist draws her into a conspiracy that threatens all she loves, that changes. Wielding the power of a Wildmage and hunted by enemies and Arcanists alike, Ruby must find answers in the one place her kind cannot venture; the Arcane Collegium.

— Fanfiction Dot Net summary.

A RWBY story by Coeur Al'Aran, Arcanum is an Alternate Universe fic with Ruby Rose as the protagonist. Unlike in the original show, Ruby is not a huntress but a messenger in the slums of Vale, barely managing to make ends meet. However, after a meeting with an Arcanist — a member of a special caste distinguished by their magical abilities — she discovers herself to be one of the rare and feared Wildmages. Hoping to learn how to better control her newfound abilities, Ruby sneaks into the Arcane Collegium, the academy and headquarters of the Arcanists. Once there she resolves to master her abilities, conceal her identity as a Wildmage... and eat as much as she possibly can.

Complete as of February 6, 2022. Can be read here.

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This work contains examples of:

• Achievement Test of Destiny:
  • The Arcana each have a separate trial that all willing Initiates are required to pass in order to become a full member.
    • The Azure: Finding the True Azure Archives.
    • The White: The Trial of Will. Standing perfectly still until physical collapse, then learning the secret history of the Collegium and agreeing to keep it secret.
  • There is also an additional rite of passage, required to become a fully fledged Arcanist of that Arcana.
    • The Amber: Create a completely new spell.
    • The Crimson: Implied to be solo combat.
    • The Azure: Present your research to a panel of Azure Arcanists and impress them.
    • The White: 3 rites, testing Intelligence, Strength, and Conviction. First, by escaping an illusionary room, then fending off a Newblood in one-on-one combat, and then finally, killing a (illusionary, unbeknownst to the Intiate) close friend or family member accused of committing a serious crime.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: Most characters in Arcanum come from better circumstances than their canon versions. Almost everybody in the Collegium is a member of a well-connected family as a matter of course, including Ren, Nora, and Emerald who were originally orphans. A few characters outside that circle, like Ruby, Yang, and Junior's gang, fare worse, going from comfortably middle-class at worst to abject poverty.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • The power of a Wildmage is shown to be greater than what was normal in canon with Aura and Semblances — closer to wielders of true magic like the Maidens and original humanity This makes sense, as they are this setting's equivalent of the Maidens, just with hereditary powers instead of transferring on death. Ruby, Cinder (theoretically at least), and Adam can each become a Person of Mass Destruction if their full magic is unleashed, and have extremely complex and useful abilities even outside of combat.
  • Lisa Lavender, a civilian journalist in canon and Coeur's other fics, is here a Azure-White Arcanist, though what specific magical knowledge she has is not shown.
  • Zig-Zagged by Jaune. Compared to canon, he is less powerful, but much more competent. Without Aura and a Semblance he is not superhuman, but he has training on par with his fellow warriors (and better than most other characters) rather than none at all.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Arthur Watts, Hazel Rainart, and Tyrian Callows are all law-abiding members of various Arcana rather than villains working to destroy the world. Or Tyrian was, anyway, as he mysteriously went rogue just before the story begins and soon died in the outskirts of Vale, but at the very least he doesn't seem to have been a prolific serial killer.
  • Same with Merlot, who keeps his morbid fascination with the Grimm limited to entirely legal activities. Or not. Turns out he's the one behind the Grimm attacks on Vale and apparently Menagerie.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Coeur fic recurring character Tsune is here a perfectly respectable Emerald Arcanist, without a hint of the pain fetish that she's so happy to take out on her patients in the author's other fics.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: The system of Aura and Semblances from the show got completely scrapped in favor of the magic system and characters' powers reflect that. Ruby is a Wildmage, an unusually powerful magic user with a wide range of abilities. Weiss is an Arcanist with similar, but more structured powers. Yang, Jaune and Sun are neither and only have a regular combat training to their advantage. Jaune is eventually revealed to be a Huntsman, which means he has some kind of Anti-Magic that apparently damages the user's memory and emotions when used.
• Adaptational Villainy: Arcanum's Glynda Goodwitch is just as stern as she is in RWBY, but unlike there, she's amoral and corrupt, willing to do anything to get ahead of the competition, and uses potions that can damage a person's memories as a means to have them do her bidding. As a reference to how bad she was, Ozpin met with the King of Vale prior to his death and made the latter promise that Glynda would never become the Grand Arcanist; a promise the King manages to uphold until Glynda is murdered by her former colleagues.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • With the change to the setting's superpower system, the majority of characters are less threatening than their canon counterparts. Characters that are retooled as Arcanists are in mediocre physical shape (except for Crimsons) and their magic is difficult to use and master. A single average Beowolf Grimm is considered a serious threat to even an experienced Arcanist unless they're focused on combat, which most aren't. Retooled Huntsmen like Jaune have combat training and their own Anti-Magic ability, but aren't physically any stronger than a normal soldier.
  • Putting issues of destructive power aside, the majority of canon's main cast is simply not prepared for battle on a mental level. Most of the canon characters have been training for years since a young age to fight monsters, and can dive into fights without batting an eye. The characters in Arcanum are about the same age, but as nobles almost none of them have seen Grimm before, and a lot of them have never been physically attacked at all, so they're more likely to panic and lock up under pressure. Yang and Ruby might be more accustomed to violence, but only from normal thugs, and they both freeze in terror when confronted by a Grimm.
• Adaptation Personality Change: In such different circumstances, many characters take quite different shapes than they would originally.
  • Ruby does have a curiousity and mild obsession (with Arcanists, rather than Huntsmen and weapons), but growing up in poverty and losing both parents has made her much more abrasive, distrustful, and cynical than in canon.
  • Jaune isn't exactly socially confident, but having come from high nobility and gotten proper education and training, there's no trace of the naivete and ignorance that his canon counterpart started with. He also makes no effort at romance beyond the fake one he has with Ruby, as he's resigned to his eventual fate as a huntsman.
  • Cinder has an obvious grudge against the Collegium establishment for imprisoning her since childhood, but there's no indication (yet) that her suffering has made her a power-hungry sadist who only cares for herself. Same with Adam, who doesn't have his extremism against all humans or psychotic entitlement towards an ex-girlfriend, only an understandable hatred of the Collegiums.
  • Glynda Goodwitch was a Stern Teacher who while serious and professional was never cruel and always compassionate towards her students when it counted. As the head of the White Arcana in Vale, here she is a fanatic devotee of the organization's dogma, more arrogant, and extremely callous.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Rather than being personally and intimately familiar with each other, Adam and Blake have never met in this setting. He only knows she exists because he heard about her from her mother.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Cinder seems to enjoy petting Ruby's hair or otherwise touching her head despite the latter's pouting when she does so.
• Afraid of Doctors: Ruby and Yang both have a strong distrust of doctors and medicine, because the "doctors" they have access to in the slums are scummy, exploitative drug dealers who barely do any actual healing, and whose products are mostly poor-quality, addictive, and mind-addling painkillers. Ruby is very resistant to being seen by the Emerald healers, and has to be hounded to take the medication they give her.
• Alchemy Is Magic: Ren mentions a Gold Arcana as an example of a discipline that is no longer practiced, having been dissolved after they were caught trying to transmute base metals into gold.
• All of the Other Reindeer: The Menagerie Collegium, not just for being majority faunus, but for having a Grand Arcanist not of the White Arcana, which caused friction between them and the other Collegiums, especially Atlas.
• Ambiguously Absent Parent: What happened to Yang and Ruby's parents, including if they had separate mothers but the same father as per canon, has yet to be touched on. All that is known is that Yang knew that Summer was short and implied Ruby wasn't likely to grow much taller.
  • It is later revealed that Taiyang Xiao Long, their father, eventually succumbed to disease after rescuing his daughters from the floods. And Summer Rose, their mother, disappeared after venturing into the outskirts, presumed dead but actual fate unknown.
• Ambiguously Evil:
  • Blake. She set Ruby up under false pretenses and nearly caused the girl to get imprisoned in Sanctum, but we don't know her motives for doing so or how much of what transpired was a part of her plan. The reasons she gives are fairly benevolent, but her honesty is still rather questionable.
  • Cinder is given a sympathetic backstory and appears friendly towards Ruby, but harbors resentment towards the Arcanists and desires revenge for putting her in Sanctum. It is left ambiguous just how far her hatred goes, how she really views Ruby, and how much of what she claims is the truth.
  • The White Arcana: An organization dedicated to preserving the status quo and maintaining good ties between Arcanists and the wider world, they effectively act as both the government and the police, tracking down Rogue Arcanists and Wildmages in order to prevent them from using their powers. In practice, they are severely distrusting of any and all Arcanists except for their own, operate on a 'guilty until proven guilty' system, and will go to any lengths to perform their duties, even murdering thousands for the sake of one Wildmage.
• Ambiguous Situation: In a discussion between Glynda and Qrow, it's revealed that something has happened to his sister Raven, and he holds the White Arcana responsible for it, but the details of what he's talking about (and if she's dead or something else) are not forthcoming.
• Ambition Is Evil: The nobles look down upon merchant-turned-noble Jacques Schnee's, and subsequently Weiss's effort to elevate their family status.
• Anger Born of Worry: Cinder expresses her fury at Ruby's plan to free the Wildmages and fight back against the Collegiums, out of a desire to stop Ruby from throwing away her own freedom, and possible her life for the sake of others, including herself.
• Anti-Magic:
  • Huntsman have some form of this, and are very unsettling to be around for Arcanists and repels the Grimm. The story seems to indicate they are massive draw-backs to whatever is done to give them this ability, with premature aging and memory loss both occurring.
  • The Grimm were created as weapons specifically attracted to, and hostile towards those carrying 'the spark', including Arcanists and especially Wildmages
• Apocalyptic Log: The makeshift fort found within the Azure Archives contains a journal, written by White-Azure Arcanist Corsac Albain, as he documents Kali Belladonna and her group of refugees escaping from Menagerie during the Grimm attack and traversing the Azure Archives towards sanctuary, and how he slowly loses himself to paranoia because of the Wildmage accompanying them, before he snaps and murders the whole group.
• Arch-Enemy: While the White Arcana hold disdain for most of the other Arcana with the exception of the Crimson Arcana, they seem to especially dislike the Azure Arcana, and vice versa. This stems from them having opposing philosophies, with the Azure focused on research and uncovering secrets and the White focused on suppressing information for the greater good.
• Arranged Marriage: Arranged marriages between noble families in order to maintain or increase one's social standing are common in Vale. Ruby, as a commoner, is horrified.
  • The Schnees had courted Weiss out to several prospective families including the Arcs, but ultimately they all fell through.
  • Ren is revealed to have an arranged marriage, preventing him from dating Nora. A fact that she is ignorant about.
• Big Eater: Deconstructed. Having lived in poverty for entire life, Ruby got used to eating as much as she possibly can for fear of going hungry later. Once she is presented with an abundance of food, she not only weirds everybody out with her absurd appetite, but also gets sick and ends up vomiting out most of said food. Her appetite is later revealed to partly be the result of gut parasites, stealing some of the food she eats before she can fully absorb it.
• Blank Book: Anyone is allowed to enter the Azure Archives even if they aren't members of that Arcana, but there is no reason to fear the Azure's secrets getting out because all the books appear blank. Supposedly, one can only read the Archives' books if you choose to officially join the Azure and pass their initiation. Arcanists and even Wildmage Ruby can't figure out any way to reveal the text no matter what magic they try, because there is no magic. The books truly are blank, nothing but decoys, and the Azure initiation consists of figuring this out and finding the hidden library with the real books in it.
• Blessed with Suck: It's generally understood that people with Anti-Magic are doomed to lose their minds, their awareness and memory fading until they can barely function. The Collegium takes them in as huntsmen, and then Sanctum attendants, in order to give them purpose even when they can no longer participate in normal society. It turns out this trope applies differently, however — the mental damage is not caused by their powers, but by the process of turning them into Human Weapons. They're Blessed With Suck not because their power is inherently dangerous to them, but because it makes them useful to the Collegium, who will exploit them until they break.
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Arcanists who disagree with the Collegium system as it is are loosely termed "anarchists" by the ones in charge of said system. Most of them have no actual desire for anarchy, they simply believe that the Collegium has overstepped its bounds and should have less control over the minutiae of magic users' lives. The White are sure that those beliefs would inevitably lead to anarchy if ever realized, but does not punish them for merely speaking their minds out of ignorance. What they do punish are anarchists who will commit atrocities to achieve or take advantage of chaos, up to and including mass murder on the scale of kingdoms, which a group has done to Menagerie and is in the process of doing to Vale.
• Book Burning: After the battle in the Azure Archives, the White shut down access to the library on the pretense of there still being active Grimm that would put researchers in danger. In reality, the immediate Grimm have long since been cleared out, and the White are instead taking this opportunity (aided by the new book-finding system) to collect and destroy any literature they can find that might threaten the status quo.
• Both Sides Have a Point: The issue of Merlot's ilk versus the Collegiums and the White. Merlot is correct that the latter are a corrupt organization which punishes innocent people in order to maintain their stranglehold on world politics, and a lot of death could be avoided if the White just did the smart thing he himself advised instead of the orthodox thing. On the other hand, he went ahead with his mass murder even knowing what the outcome would be, and the Collegiums do offer a degree of global stability that didn't exist before they were established. Ruby is upset with Merlot's execution not because him being killed is an injustice, but because only his side being killed is an injustice when his executioners are similarly guilty.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good
  • After the Azure Archives is attacked by Grimm, the White Arcana use this an an opportunity to forcibly review the Azure Arcanists' research and brainwash those working on more 'dangerous' topics to switch to Grimm instead, an admittedly imminent threat.
  • After speaking with Cinder's mother and Juniper Arc, Ruby learns that the White has no compunctions about using their means of brainwashing on nobility if they take issue with the White's actions, with Juniper only being spared because she is very careful to publicly act as if she believes the lie that her husband and son's degenerating mental states are a hereditary condition.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Ren tries to ignore Nora's feeling for him, because he is already in an arranged marriage and can not reciprocate her feelings. He hopes that she'll move on from him on her own, as outright rejecting her could reflect badly on her family.
• Broken Masquerade: Ruby Rose's plan to break the secrecy surrounding the Wildmages, and find freedom for herself and others, even if doing so would be to declare war on the Collegiums.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Qrow is one of the White's most effective operatives, which is the only reason he wasn't sentenced to the Sanctum or killed for consorting with a Wildmage, killing a fellow Arcanist to protect her, and wiping his own mind to destroy information the White could use to track her down. They would have punished him just to be sure, despite his plausible deniability, but he's simply too useful as an agent.
• Cap: Arcanists have a cap of two Arcana they can be part of. Grand Arcanist Ozpin is speical in that he has four: White, Red, Azure, Black. Merlot got around this by having multiple identities in every kingdom. Between all of his identities, he's earned a gemstone from every Arcana except the White.
• Casting a Shadow: One of the Shadow Arcana's skillsets. They are capable of manipulating shadows for use as weapons or chains.
• Celibate Hero: Most of the noble students of the Collegium either have an arranged marriage waiting for them outside, 'arrange' their own 'marriages' inside, or sometimes both. Jaune is not one of them, having no attachments outside and politely declining any potential partners. While he claims he has something with Ruby to give her an alibi for her sneaking, he makes no move to impose or change that lie into truth. He knows that at the current pace of his service, it won't be much longer before his huntsman duties destroy his mind, and doesn't want to put anyone through that. After he's freed and flees the Collegium, he becomes a bit more open to the idea. At the very least, he doesn't refuse Yang's clear interest in him.
• Chaste Hero: While Ruby has a basic awareness of romance and sexuality (not to mention a fairly graphic vocabulary), she can't understand what the big deal is with either, and mostly only thinks of them when someone else brings them up.
• Cheer Them Up with Laughter: Sun, at Weiss's request, tries to and eventually succeeds in cheering up Ruby using dirty jokes after she fell into a funk because of Wildmage Adam's brutal arrest.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Ruby drops multiple curse words after she is doused with a bucket of water to get her out of bed, courtesy of Sun, to his amusement and Weiss's embarrassment.
• Color-Coded Wizardry: Each of the various types of magic, called Arcana, are identified by a colored gemstone:
  • White: Represents barrier magic, truth spells, and detection magic useful in diplomacy or tracking down criminals. Chosen by Weiss Schnee and Pyrrha Nikos, with Glynda Goodwitch as a member.
  • Black: Enchantment magic utilized to imbue ordinary objects with various spells for various reasons. Chosen by Nora Valkyrie
  • Crimson: The direct combat branch, their spells are entirely focused around battle. Chosen by Pyrrha Nikos
  • Emerald: Also known as the 'green' Arcana, entirely devoted to healing magic. With Tsune as a member.
  • Azure: Perhaps the least spell-intensive branch, the Blue Arcana is that of discerning secrets, magical research, and archeology. Chosen by Ruby Rose and Lie Ren, with Arthur Watts and Doctor Merlot also as members.
  • Amber: The Arcana of innovation and creation of new spells. Chosen by Coco Adel.
  • Gray: A Menagerie-only Arcana, known also as the 'Shadow' Arcana. Centered around illusions, concealment, and the crafting of lies. Blake Belladonna is the only known member.
• Conscription: Atlas Collegium requires all Arcanists to to be members of the White Arcana.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror:
  • The White Arcana see nothing wrong with killing others, or even themselves for the greater good, and even honour such sacrifices, much to Weiss's horror after they learn about Corsac Fennec's murder of Kali Belladonna and her refugees from Menagerie because they were accepting help from a Wildmage.
  • The yearly flooding of Vale's slums is a horrific event that brings dozens or hundreds of deaths, immediately and in the aftermath, but the Dredgers can't afford to cower and panic, instead stoicly preparing for the event and dealing with the bodies afterwards. They're much more appropriately horrified when the flood is deliberately triggered early by the White, when they haven't fully prepared yet.
• Conspicuous Consumption: According to Weiss, her father routinely throws grand parties to try and cover up the fact that he married into the nobility rather than being born there.
• Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story: Ruby claims to be a noble from Menagerie... which was destroyed by unknown means a few years prior.
• Cooldown Hug: After Malnuex pisses Ruby off one too many time, she loses control of her power and starts to surge, only for Jaune to appear and hug her to try and calm her down, shutting down her magic and allowing her to realize she can use Jaune's huntsman power to fend off her surges.
• Cover-Blowing Superpower:
  • Ruby actively struggles to not let her magic solve her problems, because if it did she'd be identified immediately.
  • Weiss learns a little bit of healing magic from Maria, something which only an Emerald Arcanist is supposed to know, and uses it to help an injured ally when the Collegium descends on the enemy encampment. She thought nothing of it at the time, but there were no Emeralds in the raid, so afterwards an investigation began to figure out who has knowledge outside their role. Goodwitch says there would be no punishment for the healer (besides having to join the Emerald to keep the knowledge within it), but Weiss suspects that would not apply to her, because of the only possible source for that knowledge and what else she could have (and did) learn from her. Rather than be sanctioned for learning forbidden magic from a criminal, Weiss flees the Collegium.
• Cultural Rebel:
  • Subverted by Ruby. Thanks to her cover story, everyone at the Collegium assumes that she's a noble who acts as far from nobility as they can imagine, but she actually doesn't come from royal-adjacent blood and her behavior is totally normal.
  • Qrow plays this straight, however. He's a blue-blood and well-connected Arcanist of the White, but doesn't give a stinking wet fart for noble institutions, the Collegium, or the lofty ideals claimed by the White.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: For all her experience and power as an Arcanist, there's precious little Goodwitch can do against Wildmage Ruby when it comes down to an actual deadly battle. And Ruby doesn't even bother using her Wildmagic to decimate Goodwitch in any number of creative ways — mostly, she just uses it to defend against her opponent's own magic, attacking instead with her bare hands.
  • A group of White Arcanists try to attack the protagonists and their guard as they're setting out to rebuild a new Collegium in Menagerie without the White's influence. The attackers get half their number killed in the first moments of the exchange due to facing two Wildmages, a Huntsman, and a full squad of knights loyal to House Arc. It continues to go downhill from there for them.
• Cutting the Knot: The trials to become a member of the White involve finding a way out of an illusionary room. Pyrrha wins by solving the Moon Logic Puzzle as intended, while Ruby just finds the enchanted object powering the illusion ans destroys it.
• Cynical Mentor
  • Cinder Fall formerly Malnuex, as the first Wildmage Ruby meets in Vale's Sanctum, serves as this for her, teaching her how to read and write, and allowing her a safe place to vent her feelings. Cinder herself is jaded and vengeful from her mistreatment at the hand of the Collegeum, but tells Ruby not to let her judgement bias her own.
  • Adam Taurus briefly served as this for Ruby, revealing that the surges can be mitigated through frequent usage of magic, how unfairly the Collegium treats Wildmages, and showcasing the power a Wildmage can wield while fighting the Grimm in the Azure Archives.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Taiyang Xiao Long, Ruby and Yang's father, died due to disease after rescuing his daughters from the floods and subsequent outbreak.
  • Ghira and Kali Belladonna both perished due to the Fall of Menagerie, Ghira while performing a last stand against the Grimm, and Kali when she and the group of survivors she had been leading in the Azure Archives were betrayed by White Arcanist Corsac Albain.
  • Salem was an ancient evil of immense power. Was. Unlike her canon counterpart she was not immortal, and her death marked the transition between the age of Mages and the age of Arcanists.
• Decomposite Character: Ozpin and Ozma are totally different people. Ozma was a powerful Mage before the age of the Collegiums who fought a war against the evil Salem, and who perished at its conclusion. An author's note clarifies that Ozma is "dead and gone", so his canon reincarnation Ozpin is his own unrelated person rather than having his body and identity subsumed by an ancient soul.
• Deer in the Headlights: Yang and Ruby's response when each were attacked by Grimm.
• De-Power Zone: The Sanctum works as a prison for magic users by exuding a null field of some kind that blocks off their access to magic.
• Didn't Think This Through: The Azure Arcana possesses the greatest libraries in the world and these are the main draw for joining the Azure Arcana, and a great boon for the Collegiums... but the Archives, in order to contain all the books and scrolls they can, are all physically connected to each other through spatial magic. In effect, the Azure Archives are a separate dimension that connects all Collegiums with a portal network, with only uncoordinated, noncombatant scholars to contest intruders. All it takes is one Collegium falling and a particularly determined force can bypass all the defenses of each Collegium, which is what happens when Grimm start wandering into it from a fallen Collegium.
• Disc-One Final Boss: The driving conflict for most of the story is what happened to Menagerie and what seems to be starting to happen to Vale (Ruby's personal troubles as a Wildmage only began when she was roped into the former conflict by Blake). The mastermind behind the Grimm attacks, and the means by which he did it, are neutralized in Chapter 104, leaving only Ruby's growing vendetta against the White to comprise the final story arc.
• Distant Finale: Fifteen years later, the reconstruction of Menagerie is going well, enough so that the other nations of the world cannot afford to just ignore it any longer. By this time, Wildmages have come seeking refuge from all across the land and now number over a hundred. Blake is the Grand Arcanist of the new Academy, Weiss is the Headmistress, and Ruby is the head librarian. As for Vale, there is still a high degree of political tension between the non-Arcanist upper classes and the Collegium, who still refuse to admit the truth of what happened all those years ago. Despite the city's best efforts, the slums cannot easily be terraformed because of the yearly floods, and are now being repopulated by a new generation of dredgers cast out from the upper districts.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Weiss swears to herself that she would do her best to protect Ruby, unaware that she is a Wildmage, the very person she must hunt down as a White Arcanist.
  • The White Arcana attempt to recruit Initiate Ruby Rose in their ranks, completely unaware that she is the very Wildmage that had been hunting all this time.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Lieutenant-Commander Alabaster Winchester takes up this role, most obvious when Ruby joins the guard trainees in their morning runs; any guardsman who finishes behind her will be forced to do push-ups until they physically can't continue.
• Driven to Suicide: Cinder is the only Wildmage being held inside Vale's Sanctum. She explains that although De-Power Zone of the Sanctum prevents them from using any magic, it doesn't fully solve the problem of Surges. Imprisoned Wildmages have no solution to the same issues Ruby suffered while hiding out in the slums, and the majority of them take their own lives when it gets bad enough.
• Due to the Dead: Arcanists have a duty to gather the Arcanum of fallen Arcanists they've encountered and take them back to their Collegium, so that they can be identified and their family can be notified, if doing so doesn't pose a threat to themselves.
  • Ruby gathers the journal of Corsac Albain, who had been traveling alongside Kali Belladonna after the Fall of Menagerie, along with Kali's letters, so that Blake can learn of her mother's fate. Meanwhile, Merlot gathers the Arcanums of the refugees who fled and later died alongside Kali.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Initiate Arcanists (of both genders) have a habit of congregating before breakfast on the lawn to watch the newbloods (the Guard Trainees, also both genders) run laps while wearing minimal clothing.
• Emergency Cargo Dump: Ruby and Merlot are forced to abandon their supplies for their week-long expedition into the Azure Archives, including a portable Rubricator when they encounter Grimm.
• End of an Age: With the closure of the Azure Archives after the Grimm incident, and the revelation of noted Azure Arcanist Merlot's crimes, Ren anticipates that the Azure itself might be coming to an end. There are rumors of imminent sanctions from the other Collegiums, and with the awful publicity and no longer having the Archives to entice initiates, it's very possible that Arcana's scant applicants will dry up completely.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even Glynda Goodwitch is offended and horrified by the accusation that she would kill an Intiate in cold blood.
• Evil Mentor: The White Arcana in general and Goodwitch in particular.
  • Merlot, who turns out to be the leader of the Grimm incursion.
• Fair-Weather Friend:
  • Cinder warns Ruby that as a huntsman, Jaune will turn on her if he learns her true nature as a Wildmage, regardless of how close they may have been before. Ruby refuses to acknowledge this possibility, and she's proven right.
  • Pyrrha unceremoniously throws Weiss under the bus when the latter abandons the Collegium, explicitly comparing her to child murderers based solely on the rumors and propaganda she's heard. She's shown to regret having reacted this way in the Distant Finale, at the very least because she no longer uncritically believes the official word of the Collegium.
• Fake Relationship: After getting caught sneaking out to visit Yang, Ruby creates one of these with Jaune as a way to try and explain her occasional night out. While Jaune doesn't know what she does at night, he's surprisingly all right with the fake-relationship, likely due to how he considers Ruby one of his very few actual friends, and also mentions how the idea of him sneaking out to partake in an illicit relationship is hardly bad for his reputation.
• Fate Worse than Death: Ruby inflicts this on Goodwitch, not finishing her off but instead force-feeding her the same memory-damaging potion she'd used on so many others to control them, and without even measuring. When other Arcanists arrive on the scene, Goodwitch has been mentally regressed to an infant.
• Foreshadowing: Ruby manages to enter the Collegium under the façade that she is a refugee who's former home of Menagerie was destroyed by the Grimm. Later, during the White's rite of passage, she would be shown an illusion of Yang, who's also claimed to have been a survivor from Menagerie. Later, her actually former home of the Vale slum would be destroyed during the Grimm's initial attack, with her and her sister Yang being some of the only survivors.
• Fish out of Water: The transition from abject poverty to high society is not a smooth one for Ruby. Things as simple as bathing and defecating are done so differently as to baffle her, not to mention all the unwritten social rules that govern how influencial families are supposed to interact.
• Great Big Library of Everything: The Azure Archives. The library is so huge no one has ever reached the end of it and some theorize it might be literally endless. It is speculated, and then later confirmed that Vale's Azure Archives are connected to all other Azure Archives on Remnant. A realistic issue is that it has so much knowledge, that it's long past the point of being able to keep track of it all by mundane means. Ruby comes up with the idea of a rudimentary magical search engine (eventually named the Rubricator) to index the Archives and find the book she needs.
• Gilded Cage:
  • The Sanctum Estate. The prisoners there have good food, separate rooms and access to things like library and gardens. Menagerie even allowed family visits and monitored walks outside. Still, it is a prison, and not all residents are happy with that arrangement.
  • In the grand scheme of things, the Collegiums themselves are not much better. They are less of an institution of higher learning, and more a place where people with supernatural powers are hidden away from the public, and not allowed to leave until they can be reasonably trusted not to abuse their abilities or cause catastrophe.
• Gunboat Diplomacy: This is the rebuilt Menagerie's political trump card in the Distant Finale. By virtue of being the only place they're allowed to exist, Menagerie is now resident to over a hundred Wildmages, and after witnessing a spectacular demonstration of their power, the diplomats from Vale have the choice of either leaving the city be, or pushing the issue and having their armies decimated.
• Hate Sink: Glynda Goodwitch, as the face of the White Arcana. Most of her scenes consist either of her committing some atrocity, or refusing to acknowledge that her violent methods aren't the best way to deal with every problem.
• Healing Magic Is the Hardest: The Emerald Arcana are healers, and it's stressed how complicated the spells involved can be and how high the stakes can be if you fail. Ruby's first thought is to join them (to bring desperately needed medical care to the slums), but her magic doesn't work the same way as normal Arcanists. Since her Wildmage powers work off intent and imagination rather than tangible processes, she doesn't think she can use it to perform real medical procedures and isn't comfortable putting an injured person at risk to verify it. Even if she could heal, doing it so effortlessly when it's supposed to be absurdly difficult would blow her cover.
• He Had a Name: Merlot mentions to Goodwitch that Adam was the name of the Wildmage the White Arcana attacked in the Azure Archives.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Nicholas Arc goes against all Collegium law and his own indoctrination to smuggle Ruby into the Inner Sanctum to rescue Jaune. The last thing he sees before being beheaded by one of his fellow huntsmen is his son being saved from his fate, and he dies happy and relatively lucid knowing he made that happen.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: Before he was killed, Ozpin met with the King of Vale and left him specific instructions that Goodwitch must not become the Grand Arcanist in the future, showing that he did not trust her with the position. The King honors that deal and uses his veto power for the first time in history to stonewall her appointment.
• Hold the Line: Vale's Azure Arcanists are forced to defend themselves and the portal to the Azure Archives from within when they are suddenly attacked by Grimm, until reinforcements from the Crimson and White Arcanists can arrive.
• Honor Among Thieves: The criminals of Vale's slums honor their promises made among one another, as doing otherwise for short-term gain harms everyone involved, and usually earns them a swift death.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Several of Vale's Azure Arcanists try to stop Crimson and White Arcanists from entering the Azure Archives to maintain their sanctity, when the Azure Archives are under attack from Grimm. Grand Arcansist Ozpin overrules them, citing safety as more important.
  • This is a literally fatal flaw of the White Arcana as a whole: they will not allow themselves to compromise their principles, even under threat of death. White Arcanist Corsac Albain poisoned his entire refugee caravan because he couldn't abide them accepting vital aid from a Wildmage and letting them walk free afterward. The White in general could fight off the invading hordes of Grimm by emptying the Sanctum of its powerful prisoners, but would rather the cities be destroyed and their people wiped out than admit that their dogma is counterproductive.
• Hooked Up Afterwards: Yang and Jaune finally meet as the last act is winding down, and in the penultimate chapter it's shown that she's made a habit of making passes at him. Jaune himself, with his nobleman's sensibilities, is thoroughly embarrassed by her flirting but pointedly is not saying no. How far that goes is deliberately left open in the Distant Finale.
• Human Weapon: The Huntsmen are brainwashed into becoming loyal, emotionless killing weapons with the continuous use of a mind-altering potion and heavy interrogation. Those who have their minds too damaged from repeat procedures become wardens at the Sanctum. This process is explained as a hereditary side effect of Anti-Magic, but that's a lie. In reality, it's just an excuse to conscript every person with the ability they can find without angering the public.
• Hypocrite: Weiss spends her first week with Ruby insulting on regular basis under the pretext of constructive criticism, but when Ruby finally snaps and insults her back she becomes incredibly offended.
• I Die Free: Cinder's last act, after the Sanctum's antimagic field goes down and all of her suppressed power goes off at once, is to dive headlong into the White Cathedral and burn it to the ground, taking it (and numerous White Arcanists) with her. She mentally thanks Ruby for the chance, even if she wasn't able to escape with the others.
• Immunity Disability: Huntsmen cannot be hurt by magic, but it goes the other way as well — they cannot be healed either. Jaune has to sit out some training because of an injury, and makes up a story about the Drill Sergeant Nasty leaving him injured to teach him a lesson, to cover up the real reason he doesn't just have it healed.
• Impoverished Patrician: The Schnee family, who have fallen on hard times are forced to marry their daughter to a rich merchant.
• Improbable Age: Pyrrha set a record for being the youngest initiate to get their first gem and become a full Arcanist. Ruby quickly takes that record from her (though obviously she has special circumstances), but concurrently Pyrrha succeeds at the same test and becomes the youngest to ever earn their second gem and leave initiation completely.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Weiss's insistence on proper decorum (especially to Ruby, who doesn't care for it) stems from the fact that the Schnee family is not well-respected among the current nobility, thanks to marrying a rich but lowborn merchant. She singles out Ruby in particular because she thinks she's a noble from Menagerie, and is lashing out because she assumes that Ruby's behavior is an insult towards her — that it's Ruby's way of saying that despite coming from a dead House in a dead nation and acting like an oaf, she's still a pure noble and Weiss isn't.
• Innocently Insensitive: Ruby sours on the Black Arcana path when the Arcanist pitching it to the initiates unintentionally slights her with his pitch. First by bragging about how the magic items invented by the Black make life easier for everyone (leaving out those like her who are too impoverished to see any of that), and then by explaining to her how the city's magical toilets work (they output all the city's waste directly into the lower quarter, making the conditions there not better but worse by concentrating it).
• Insistent Terminology: New Menagerie does not have a "Collegium", thank you very much. It isn't a part of that damn system. What it has is an "Arcane Academy".
• Insult Backfire: Malnuex tricks Ruby using to a bet to get her to ask him out to the Founding Ball, only for him to instead reject her in order to publicly humiliate her. Instead, Jaune shows up, managing to unintentionally calm Ruby down from surging using his powers, and turns it all around by pretending it had been a ruse to make Jaune jealous so that he would ask her out to the Ball. Everyone watching, excluding Malnuex, end up swooning over how romantic it is, even though both Jaune and Ruby aren't actually dating.
• Invocation: Some Arcanists use chants while performing spells, but they are only used as a focus, and are not necessary.
• Irony: Ruby, the person in the Collegium who is the most suspicious and has the most to hide, starts getting trusted with sensitive knowledge and authority after Ozpin's murder, because she is the only person who is 100% beneath suspicion since she was under Anti-Magic at the time of the crime.
• I Will Only Slow You Down:
  • Ruby Rose is forced to walk away as fellow Wildmage Adam Taurus is beaten nearly to death in front of her by White Arcanists. She tries to intervene, only for Adam to yell at Ruby to go, as intervening would only get her tossed into the Sanctum as well.
  • Cinder attempts to dissuade Ruby from her plan to free the Wildmages from the Sanctum, so that Ruby can live her own life in peace.
• Jerkass Ball: Starting in Chapter 40, Jaune starts to ignore and withdraw from his friends, behaving coldly and harshly towards anyone distracting him from his training, Ruby in particular. This is because the White had tightened his huntsman brainwashing after an incident in the field. Ruby is able to break through the brainwashing when they are assigned together on an excursion using some Loophole Abuse.
• Just Friends: Through all the hardships and tribulations and affirmations and allusions, Ruby and Jaune are ultimately just friends. Underneath the fake romance and the people hinting to make the romance real, they simply don't have that spark of attraction and value each other based on other things. When Yang starts to make passes at him, Ruby isn't jealous and just asks her not to play with his feelings.
• Karmic Death: Ruby chooses not to kill Goodwitch, but rather to neutralize her using the very same forbidden tool she had abused to maintain her own hegemony. In turn, the White find that she has become a liability in that state, and the vaunted organization she championed disposes of her like so many others.
• Kill the Poor:
  • While the yearly flooding of the city's lower levels is used as mildly horrifying way of controlling the 'dredger' population, it's cranked up to eleven in an effort to force the wildmage they believe hidden in the slums to reveal themselves. The White Arcanists destroy the city's dams to cause a single mass flood rather than several small waves, all to make the wildmage choose between revealing themselves and saving the dredgers, or watching as the entire lowest level of the city drowns. Ruby is able to take a third option and divert the river into the Noble's estates, mostly by accident.
  • During the Grimm attack on the city, Arcanists from the White deliberately draw the Grimm into the lower levels by leaving the outer gates open while sealing them off from the upper levels, trapping the dredgers as bait and intending to flood the entire area to wipe out the attack. The Grimm attack is stopped cold... and the trapped dredger population almost completely wiped out.
• Knight Templar: The White Arcana. An organization dedicated to preserving the status quo and maintaining good ties between Arcanists and the wider world, they effectively act as both the government and the police, tracking down Rogue Arcanists and Wildmages in order to prevent them from using their powers. In practice, they are severely distrusting of any and all Arcanists except for their own, operate on a 'guilty until proven guilty' system, and will go to any lengths to perform their duties, even murdering thousands for the sake of one Wildmage.
  • Of special note is Menagerie Arcanist Corsac Albain, who would rather murder his whole group of refugees, including Kali Belladonna, than let a Wildmage enter another Collegium.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: Ruby, who is usually initially mistaken for a boy due to her stunted growth and tomboyish attitude. Averted later on, as a more substantial diet allows her to fill out her body.
• Le Parkour:
  • As a former dredger messenger, this is Ruby's specialty.
  • To her shock, the Huntsman are also capable of this, easily keeping pace with her.
• Light Is Not Good: White Arcana is an organization devoted to maintaining peace between the Collegiums and in the world as a whole. They specialize in magical barriers and truth spells and, accordingly with their name, wear white robes and adorn their Arcana with white gems. They will go to extreme lengths, including brainwashing their huntsmen and killing thousands of people, to ensure that every Wildmage and every Arcanist beyond their control is either imprisoned or killed. They also hide the truth about their order and the history of the Arcanists from the wider world for fear of upsetting the current order and seek to act with no oversight or limits to their power.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Unlike in canon, in Arcanum physical fighters have no capacity to get stronger beyond the normal limits of their bodies. Arcanists, meanwhile, can eventually become extremely powerful but until then are magically and physically weak. However, the fact that magic users aren't invulnerable no matter how powerful they are and some fighters are immune to magic means that warriors always have tactical value even on the same field as high Arcanists and Wildmages.
• Logical Weakness: Huntsmen cannot be affected by magic spells. Things like thrown fireballs snuff out instantly when they hit. But Blake demonstrates a way around this immunity: attacks created by magic won't work, but using magic indirectly to cause mundane damage can. Attacking the environment to let gravity do the rest, or using real objects as projectiles, are some ways magic users can fight back against huntsmen.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Ruby uses the excuse that since the Wildmage hiding within the Collegium had been captured, and that her tracker had been removed with permission from her mentor and thus could no longer be blocked by the Sanctum's Anti-Magic effect, she was free to enter it once more. The White are not happy with this excuse.
  • Ruby manages to phrase her orders in such a way, as to break through Jaune's programming and allow her to talk the real Jaune after his brainwashing by the White, not only during the Escort Mission down to the Grimm-infested forests, but afterwards as well.
• Madness Mantra: Nicholas's letter to Ruby has the word 'Remember' scrawled all over it, in an attempt to regain his sanity long again to write the letter in the first place.
• Mad Scientist: A common and seemingly respected mindset within the Azure Arcanum. Doctor Merlot in particular fits the trope due to his obsession with Grimm and is said to get a fair bit of admiration for his courage.
  • Ren notes that having this reputation among the Azure Arcanists is a good thing more often than not.
• Mage Killer:
  • The purpose of the Huntsman in this particular verse.
  • The Grimm are revealed to be attracted to Arcanists and those who contain 'the spark.'
• Magic A Is Magic A: Arcanists require a massive amount of training to use their magic, with the mere act of floating a small ball or summoning a candle-sized fire in their hand forcing them to focus on a dozen tiny variables and mathematical formula.
  • The fact that wild mages treat Magic as Magic is one of the reasons Cinder and Ruby theorize that they're feared and hunted.
• Magical Library: The Azure Archives. A magical force helps organize and sort the many books stored within, keeping it tidy.
• Magic Is a Monster Magnet: The Grimm will ignore Huntsmen in favor of Muggles, Muggles in favor of Arcanists, and Arcanists in favor of Wildmages. When out in territory with Grimm, Ruby has to go out of her way to stay close to her guide, or else the Grimm targetting her in particular might make them suspicious.
• The Magocracy: It is mentioned that, in the past, the Arcanists held a great amount of power over the rest of Remnant's people. The current system was set up specifically to avoid something like that happening again, as Arcanists are not believed to be reliable rulers.
• Mexican Standoff: Wildmage Adam Taurus had a brief standoff with Ruby Rose and Merlot, which is quickly resolved when Ruby blurts out that she's a Wildmage as well.
• Moment of Lucidity: Nicholas Arc manages to write two letters during such a moment, allowing him to send a message to Ruby begging her to save his son Jaune in spite of his brain damage.
• Morality Pet: Ruby arguably acts as one for the Head White Arcanist Glynda Goodwitch, constantly questioning her and forcing her to explain herself and causing her to look at situations from perspectives other than the White's. In return, Glynda has a noticeable soft spot for the girl, seeming to see her as her potential successor.
• Mundane Solution: With so much focus on the world's magic, it's sometimes forgotten that not everything has to be done with it.
  • Normally the Collegium is populated entirely by nobility and other mid-to-high-status folk, and things there are designed with that in mind. Ruby is able to 'cheat' people's assumptions about what's possible using skills and attitudes she picked up living in the slums — for example, breaking into another student's room by ignoring its magical protections and just picking the lock. Rather than using some kind of divination or tracking magic, as is apparently usual, she figures out the trick of the Azure Archives by people-watching, sneaking, and knowing how one could hide something precious from thieves.
  • This also happens to be the secret of how the Azure keep anyone else from reading their Blank Books. There's no magic, not even any creative chemistry. The books actually are blank, nothing but props, and the Arcanists reading them in public are just acting to keep up appearances. The entire public Archives are a non-magical decoy, except for an illusion hiding the door to the real Archives.
  • The White claim to have a lie-detecting poison made by the Emerald Arcana, which causes escalating physical symptoms (up to death) if you tell a lie after drinking it. It's really a psychological trick. The poison and the antidote are just juice mixtures, and the first symptoms are just the body's normal reaction to telling a lie. Interrogees will notice symptoms, then tell the truth voluntarily to get the antidote and "save" themselves.
• Mundane Utility:
  • At the Collegium, washrooms are furnished with reality-bending magical artifacts that stand in for indoor plumbing. The richer sections of the city can afford the same thing.
  • The White Arcana utilize their secret and mind-damaging memory-wiping magic, so they can re-use the same rites of passage on potential Arcanists who failed the first time and thus already know all the tricks.
• My Girl Back Home: During her ill-fated escape from the Fall of Menagerie, Kali Belladonna wrote letters for her daughter Blake, hoping that she made it out alive. Adam Taurus picked them up after her death and asks Ruby to deliver them to Blake.
• Mythology Gag: Lie Ren's area of magical study, as described by him, is basically to try and create the Aura system from canon. The fact that one of his theoretical goals is "forming a barrier around the skin to mitigate incoming damage" is too specific to just be generic superhuman ability.
• Necessarily Evil: While Glynda often extolls the White as a noble organization that conducts essential work for the benefit of Arcanists everywhere, when not in preacher mode she admits that much of what the White does is objectively abhorrent. But the work being reprehensible doesn't stop it from being essential, and being able to muster the will to wound yourself doing awful things is considered a virtue by the White.
• Never Learned to Read: Ruby runs into this problem. Having been raised in poverty, she can't read or write and is terrified that her inability will be exposed and prompt the Collegium to investigate her. Luckily, the early classes for initiates mostly involve simple practical demonstrations rather than book learning, giving her enough time to get a crash course from Cinder.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Ruby theorizing and commissioning the Rubricator to index the Azure Archives ends up closing it off entirely. Her expedition to map a section contributes to a swarm of Grimm being lured towards the Vale entrance. In the aftermath, the White take control of the Archives on the pretense of safety, but are instead using the Rubricator to sanitize any knowledge they don't like.
• Nobility Marries Money: Unions of these kind, and their offspring are often looked down upon by nobility.
  • Jacques, a rich merchant, married into the Schnee family, who have fallen on hard times.
  • Nora is the daughter of such a union.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Wildmage Adam Taurus used his wild magic to heal sick animals. For this, his mother was killed, his home burnt down, and he was placed in the Sanctum for over a decade, before being being released during the Fall of Menagerie to protect Kali Belladonna and her group of refugees from the Grimm. His efforts to do so increased the paranoia of the sole White Arcanist, who proceeded to kill the only group closest to accepting Adam for who he was. Later, he fights off the Grimm invading Vale's Azure Archives, saving countless lives, and is rewarding by being beaten within an inch of his life by the White Arcanists and Huntsmen, before being dragged to another Sanctum.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • Ruby finally loses patience with Martyn (along with everything else going on) when he rubs in Weiss being a wanted fugitive, capping it with a related jab at the kind of 'filth' that was wiped out in the recent slum flood. Her response is to tackle him to the ground and beat him black and blue before he can even think of using any magic.
  • Shortly after, she does the same thing to Glynda Goodwitch as her main strategy when their meeting dissolves into a fight. Goodwitch is barely equipped to last against Ruby's Wildmagic and not equipped at all for a pissed-off street rat throwing hands.
• Not Like Other Girls:
  • Sun and Jaune see the tomboyish, care-free Ruby as different from the other stuck-up nobles, and easily become her friends because of that.
• Not So Above It All: Ozpin is shown to be enthusiastic about the Rubricator, becoming very excited when it's mentioned to be functional, only to calm down when reminded of company.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Goodwitch offers one when Ruby finally confronts her about assassinating the royal family and then erasing Sun's friendship with Jaune. The deal: take the memory-damaging potion to forget what she knows and live in ignorance, or Goodwitch will make her take it because Ruby is barely out of initiation and isn't powerful enough to stop her if she forces the issue. The problem is that Ruby can stop her, so the ultimatum just gives her an excuse to do what she's wanted to do for months.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Ruby and Merlot's response when they first encounter a Grimm in the Azure Archives, and a bigger one when they realize that a massive army of Grimm is approaching Vale via the Azure Archives with them in the way.
  • Weiss's reaction when she learns that Vale's Azure Archives are under attack from Grimm, and that Ruby may still be down there.
• Old Money: Most of the Arcanists, having come from the nobility.
• One of the Boys: Ruby, whose athleticism, tomboyish attitude, and vulgar sense of humor endear her to the Newbloods, especially Sun.
• One of the Kids: Even after becoming an Arcanist, Ruby waltzes right into Initiate Weiss's room out of boredom and loneliness, and sleeps and eats breakfast with her in spite of everyone, initially including Weiss as well, regarding her in shock and disbelief.
• Over-the-Shoulder Carry: Sun carries Ruby out of her room like this when she refuses to leave after Wildmage Adam's brutal arrest puts her in a funk. She doesn't resist, up until he jokes about dunking her in a river, at which point she escapes by punching him and starts walking on her own two feet.
• Papa Wolf:
  • Taiyang Xiao Long, who looked after Ruby and Yang as a single father after Summer's disappearance, and later died protecting them from the floods.
  • Despite his severe brain damage, Nicholas, Jaune's father, manages to write a message to Ruby using sheer willpower, begging her to save Jaune from suffering the same fate as him.
• Parental Substitute: Cinder treats Ruby like her own little sister, understandable considering she'd been separated from her own little brother, Martyn who no longer acknowledges her, and thus sees Ruby as a surrogate. Adam even lampshades this, teasing that she must be Ruby's mother.
• Parting-Words Regret: Ruby and Pyrrha last interact when the former walks out of the White Cathedral after defeating Goodwitch and setting the place ablaze, but the latter and everyone else are too confused and panicked to keep her long. Their last substantive conversation happened after Ruby learned that Weiss had left the Collegium and gone Rogue. Pyrrha's response was to immediately suggest Weiss was nothing but evil scum all along. Though Ruby lashed out at her, Pyrrha was too deep in orthodoxy to see reason and just dismissed her reaction as a product of her recent stress. It's shown in the Distant Finale that Pyrrha's gained a lot more perspective since then, and she's deeply ashamed that she burned bridges with her only two friends because she trusted the authority she knew was pushing a narrative over the bonds she made herself.
• Penny Among Diamonds: Due to the extreme stratification of Vale's society, the Collegium's students are upper middle class at the poorest... except for Ruby, a Dredger from the absolute lowest levels of society, who passes herself off as an Impoverished Patrician who lost everything in the fall of Menagerie.
• Pent-Up Power Peril: So far the greatest known drawback for Wildmages; The Surges. The longer they go without using their magic in large amounts, the more of it 'builds up' inside of them. Short term it leads to something like a violent fever, with increased temperature, shaking, and a difficulty of thinking. Long term, the power is going to come out one way or another. As time goes on, the surges become more frequent, with less and less time before the next surge. According to Cinder, if the power can't come out, like for those trapped in a Sanctum, suicide is almost inevitable as the surge never ends. It's implied that only her rage at her family and situation is letting her hang on to her sanity. Adam reveals that regular usage of their power prevent surges from occurring, but that doing so is difficult when under regular scrutiny from Arcanists.
• Pet the Dog: Adam Taurus, despite how broken he is, finds joy in hearing that Blake Belladonna survived the Fall of Menagerie, even though they never met personally.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Ruby grabs Weiss's hand, and silently asks her not to leave, when Glynda dismisses her during Ruby and Merlot's questioning after they were spotted in the company of a Wildmage during the Grimm's attack on the Azure Archives.
• Poor Communication Kills: There's friction between Weiss and Ruby at first, thanks to Weiss's refusal to communicate her issues except through loud admonishments at surface-level behaviors. The deeper issue is that Weiss is approaching Ruby assuming the latter is prejudiced against her for her pedigree. She is, but she's working from a completely different set of prejudices than Weiss assumes, so her attempts to address it are worse than useless.
• Power Copying: The Grimm are capable of reproducing spells performed in front of them.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The anti-magic field of the Sanctum comes from an artifact hidden within its bowels. It uses the magic void of huntsmen as a source, and inflicts terrible things on their bodies and minds in the process of expanding the reach of their dampening to encompass the whole prison. Every huntsman employed by the Collegium must do shifts in the Inner Sanctum to maintain the field, each time coming out with permanent damage that eventually renders them into a vegetative state.
• Power Incontinence: Ruby suffering from this is what leads to her sneaking into the Sanctum as an Initiate, as she knows that she has to learn to control her powers or else face capture and probable death.
• Properly Paranoid: Ruby is very quick to assume the worst about any given event or even a simple question, but considering that she is being actively hunted by the very people she's surrounded by it's hard to blame her.
• Privileged Rival: Martin Malneux takes up this role to Ruby.
• Psychoactive Powers: Evidently the core difference between Wildmages and traditional Arcanists. While Arcanists do magic based upon mathematical equations and exact thought processes, Wildmages' magic simply reacts to their emotions or will with little deeper thoughts required.
• Puppet King: Ghira Belladonna of Menagerie was the first Grand Arcanist to not have been a member of the White Arcana, and clashed with the White on several issues regarding how he ran his Collegium. One day, however, Blake says that he suddenly backed down and came around to the White's point of view, which split their family. Having joined the White and seen how they operate, Ruby comes to the conclusion that the White likely brainwashed Ghira and that he was independent from the White only as long as they chose to allow it.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • The Menagerie Collegium, compared to the others. They allow prisoners within the Sanctums family visits, and monitored walks outside. One of the guards even took pity on the prisoners, teaching them swordsmanship to keep them healthy. Helped by Menagerie Grand Arcanist Ghira Belladonna not being of the White Arcana.
  • Marrow, of Atlas's Specialist, is friendly and casual with Vale's Initiates, and even attempts to stand up for Ruby when she was being interrogated by the White after her meeting with Adam in the Sanctum.
• Recruiting the Criminal:
  • During the Fall of Menagerie, Kali Belladonna recruited Wildmage Adam Taurus from the Sanctum to help them escape.
  • The White attempt to recruit Ruby Rose, a Dredger/Wildmage into their ranks. Admittedly, they are ignorant as to their true nature.
• Refuge in Audacity: Ruby's plan and the core plot is one of these. While she knows that Wildmages are dangerous and considered criminals, she doesn't know why nor does she have any idea on how to control her magic. Rather than continue trying to hide or risk living in the wild, she instead chooses to sneak into the school of the very people hunting her and pose as a new initiate.
• Required Secondary Powers: Ren is trying to figure out how to enhance the human body using magic. This trope is one of the obstacles he runs into in his experiments. Ruby finds him one day with an injured arm. The previous night, he successfully gave more power to his arm, but didn't make it tougher, so he suffered a torn muscle when he lifted a heavy weight.
• Retcon: Maria Calavera is first seen in a brief cameo in Chapter 70, as a member of the White Arcanum. She is introduced later as a notorious Rogue Arcanist who has lived in a loose outskirts community of other Rogues for decades, contradicting this.
• The Reveal: Chapter 103: The ancient Mage Wars were waged by Ozma and Salem. Ozma infused extraordinary power into four women, the first Wildmages (then called Conduits), to help him in the conflict. Salem created the Grimm as a counter, only for them to run wild and decimate both sides. They both died in the closing days of the war, ending the age of Mages and ushering in the modern age of Arcanists.
• Riddle for the Ages:
  • What exactly happened on the day of Ozpin's murder? The White Arcana were possibly the culprits and the list of other suspects is short, but the details of what went down in the Headmaster's tower are never revealed.
  • What was Qrow referring to about the White "costing" him his sister? Readers learn the story of how he lost his first love Summer, which he similarly blames on the White, but his sister is never elaborated on.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Melanie is killed when the White floods the slums to ward off the Grimm, with her sister and Junior implied to have suffered the same fate. Ruby finds her corpse floating in the flooded ruins.
• Sadistic Choice: Averted. Weiss promises to herself that if she had the option between following the White's command to kill her friend Ruby, or warning her and escaping together at the possible expense of their lives, she would pick the latter. As she is ignorant to Ruby's true nature as a Wildmage, it's unknown if she will keep this promise.
• Safe Zone Hope Spot: Kali and her group of refugees from the Fall of Menagerie are days away from reaching the safety of Vale, when they are betrayed by one of their own. Adam laughs bitterly when he learns how close they had been to safety from Ruby.
• Scatterbrained Senior:
  • Nicholas Arc, Jaune's father, who appears to suffer from dementia. Due to his duties as a huntsman depriving him of his memories and sanity.
  • Maria Calavera is getting on in years and has become less and less organized as a result. At some point she hauled a huge boulder into her home, but no longer remembers why she did it or how, so it's just sitting there.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Maria doesn't care for the decorum of the Collegium, the overlong prose of noble speech, or being treated like she's less than capable by whippersnappers. She's fully prepared to respond to all of these with whacks from her cane. It doesn't take long for Weiss to lose patience and call her out for punishing imagined slights, and she doesn't let Maria play it off as a Secret Test of Character when it's just her being unpleasant.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: It is generally expected that Initiates, almost all of them nobility, use their connections to more easily advance in their Arcana.
  • Malneux uses his connection to get a Crimson Arcanist to fight on his behalf during an honor duel, hoping to intimidate and/or humiliate Ruby. In exchange, Jaune, the scion of House Arc, steps in on her behalf.
  • Ruby uses her relationship with the Head White Arcanist Glynda Goodwitch to leverage advantages and get away with stuff, including leaving the Collegium alongside Merlot despite still being an Initiate, learning about the White's rite of passage in advance by lying about being sent on a task by Glynda, and fast-tracking her, Weiss, and Pyrrha's rite of passage into the White Arcana despite it being during a time of crisis, by again wording it as Glynda's idea.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!
  • Qrow committed crimes against the Collegium in order to protect the woman he loved, a Wildmage named Summer Rose.
  • Jaune goes against his explicit huntsman programming (as well as nihilism from his circumstances) because he wants to do right by his friend when she's in pain. Qrow can only mirthlessly laugh at history repeating itself.
• Scylla and Charybdis: The justification Merlot gives when he and his apprentice Rudy are seen in the company of a Wildmage. It was either be killed by the Grimm, be killed by the Wildmage, or escort said Wildmage to Vale's Azure Archives Portal.
• Secret-Keeper: Arcanist Merlot deduces Ruby's identity as a Wildmage and seeks her out as an apprentice, offering her security in exchange for her help in his Grimm studies.
• Sent Into Hiding: Ruby assumed that Nicholas Arc was sent to work for the Sanctum after he lost his mind in order to avoid embarrassing his family. He wasn't.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: Both Ruby and Yang once taken out of the slums. Ruby gains a notable figure once she's given enough to eat and medical care in the Collegium and several mentions are made of her hair and complexion, all of them complimentary. Yang, being the canon series' Ms. Fanservice, gets the same treatment once she and Blake move to the Merchants' District. It gets to the point that Yang has multiple suitors, all of whom wouldn't have given her more than a scornful glance while she was still a Dredger.
• Shipper on Deck: Despite her initial distrust of Ruby, Juniper starts suggesting that Ruby and Jaune would make a good couple after Ruby rescues Jaune from the Collegium.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Though she urges Ruby against it, Cinder desperately wants to escape the Sanctum, get her revenge for having her life stolen from her, and live out the rest of her days in freedom. When she finally gets the first thing, it becomes clear that she was a dead woman walking since long before Ruby came into the picture — her years and years of accumulated magic cannot be controlled without the Sanctum's dampening and its unrestrained fury kills her. At least she managed to get a measure of revenge before she succumbs.
• Sir Swearsalot: Ruby, compared to the other noble Arcanists living in the Collegium, much to Weiss's horror.
• Situational Sexuality: For lack of anything else to do with her life, any resources to barter for what she wants, or any source of comfort since being disowned by her family, Cinder has many times shared her bed with both men and women.
• Slave to PR:
  • The White Arcana exists to maintain the image that Arcanists are not a threat to the status quo to the general public, and is the reason why they hunt down Rogue Arcanists and Wildmages so fervently.
  • Ruby uses her reputation as a troublemaker and someone sympathetic to the plight of the Sanctum's prisoners to get away with visiting fellow Wildmage Adam inside.
• Sole Survivor: Adam Taurus, a Wildmage, is the sole survivor of Kali Belladonna's group of refugees fleeing from Menagerie.
• Something Only They Would Say: Ruby is able to figure out that the Yang she has to kill in the Rite of Conviction isn't the real Yang, but an illusion because the fake Yang said that they escaped from Menagerie, when Ruby and Yang were never from Menagerie to begin with.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Ren and Nora's respective families are still alive, though so far unseen.
• Speak Ill of the Dead: Glynda and Ironwood express anger at Kali and her group for freeing a Wildmage during the Fall of Menegarie, and are relieved to hear that the group was betrayed and killed by a White Arcanist.
• Spotting the Thread: Ruby is able to figure out that the Yang in the Rite of Conviction isn't the real Yang due to their mannerisims, way of dress, and saying that they escaped from Menagerie.
• Squishy Wizard: The Aura system from canon is completely removed, and with it the Super-Toughness that all the major characters shared. Every single character, most of whom are retooled as magic users, are much more vulnerable to damage than their original counterparts. Grimm and normal soldiers can be a serious threat as a result, rather than cannon fodder that is only a danger en masse. Defensive spells do exist, but not many Arcanists know them, and they can't easily attack at the same time.
• Sticky Fingers: Ruby will gladly steal anything that isn't attached and won't be immediately noticed as missing, from money and jewelry, to mundane things such as clean robes.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Black Arcanist Nora Valkyrie's specialty.
• Superpower Meltdown: Having been surging for the best part of twenty years with no way to relieve the pressure, Cinder becomes an uncontrolled apocalyptic firestorm the minute the Sanctum's De-Power Zone is deactivated.
• Suppressed Rage:
  • When she begins to realize just what Vale's society is like and how they view Yang / the other 'dredgers' as less than human, Blake has to make a serious effort not to unleash her Illusion magic on everyone around her to make them go insane from fear, kill themselves, or worse out of sheer outrage.
  • Ruby has to restrain herself from attacking Glynda and the White Arcanists after they beat Wildmage Adam Taurus nearly to death, with the promise she made to free both him and Cinder from the Sanctum later stopping her from acting.
• Surrender Backfire: After fighting off the Grimm invading Vale's Azure Archives, Wildmage Adam Taurus surrenders to the White Arcana, and is beaten nearly to death by them and their accompanying Huntsmen. He only fights back once, to warn Ruby not to interfere. The White Arcana justify this, claiming that the only way to guarantee he can be taken to the Sanctum safely is by beating him unconscious.
• Take Me Instead: Nicholas made a deal with the Collegium that they could have him as a huntsman, as long as Jaune was spared from the same fate. By the time this is revealed, it's clear that they only honored that deal until Nicholas was too mentally broken to hold them to it.
• Taking the Heat: Wildmage Adam Taurus willingly takes the blame for Ruby's actions inside the Collegium. While the White Arcana still realize that they are 2 Wlidmages in Vale, they lift curfew on the Intiates, believing that Adam had unwittingly misled their sensors and that the other Wildmage still hides in the slums.
• The Needs of the Many: Invoked by Glynada Goodwitch when she and Ironwood learn of White Arcanist Corsac Albain's murder of Kali Belladonna and her group of refugees. They praise him for this, much to the horror of Weiss and anger of Ruby.
• There Are No Coincidences:
  • There are multiple disappearances of people living on the outskirts of Vale, often attributed to wild animals. Blake, who survived the fall of Menagerie, sees this as a sign that Vale is next, as similar events happened at Menagerie before the Grimm attacked.
  • Merlot believes that the White Arcana locking up the Azure Archives, in spite of the Grimm having been defeated, is because of the Rubricator which can locate any book within the Archives, a device that would be very useful to the White for censoring or research purposes.
• The Swarm: How the mini-Nevermores attack, swarming their victims before slowly shredding them to pieces.
• This Way to Certain Death: Ruby and Merlot discover the skeletal remains of a Menagerie Arcanist in the Azure Archives before they are ambushed by the Grimm that entered via Menagerie's portal.
• Throw the Book at Them: Exaggerated. Wildmage Adam Taurus uses the books and bookshelves of the Azure Archives to fight the Grimm invading Vale's portal.
• Too Hungry to Be Polite: Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. To Weiss's mortification, she makes herself into a minor spectacle after the first mealtime at the Collegium both for her portion sizes and table manners, with the rest of the student body alternating between disgust and morbid fascination.
• Took a Level in Cynic:
  • After getting Cinder's honest opinion on the purpose of the Collegium, Ruby has to actively work against this trope as she starts to see everything through the same lens.
  • Weiss is very much aware of how flawed and mercenary the nobility can be, being near the bottom of it herself, but she comes in with a very orthodox and reverent view on the Collegium and what it does. Through the recent catastrophes and her friendship with Ruby, this idealistic view is repeatedly tested as she's shown in grim detail what kind of ruthlessness and corruption lies beneath the surface.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Ruby, while not evil, grew up in the Wretched Hives that are Vale's slums, and was initially hostile and untrusting of the other students within the Collegium. Over time, she has opened up to Weiss, Sun, and Jaune to the point where she even considers telling them her true nature as a Wildmage, and is reluctant to believe that they would betray her.
• Tracking Spell: Arcanist Ironwood gives every student at the Collegium a bracelet with one of these, telling them they are intended to help keep them safe should the rogue arcanist loose in the city attempt to kidnap one of them. He later recalls these when he believes the Wildmage located inside Vale's Collegium has been caught.
• Tranquil Fury: Ozpin expresses cold anger at Glynda, scaring even her, after she tries to get Initiate Ruby punished for questioning the White. He tells her that as a school, they exist to guide students, not to hurt them.
• Turned Against Their Masters: One of the main theories about the Grimm is that whomever might have created them fell victim to them in turn. Indeed, Merlot claims to have learned that their creator, Salem, died after unleashing the Grimm, if not directly killed then perishing in the chaos caused by their running wild.
• Unfulfilled Purpose Misery: Azure Arcanist Merlot is desperate to learn the truth behind the Grimm before he dies of old age, going so far as to seek out Wildmage Ruby for assistance.
• Unperson: What the White Arcana did to Cinder Fall, formerly Malnuex. They erased her from her family's memories and dispose of any records that indicated she existed, including paintings. Though it isn't perfect, as they can start to vaguely remember if pushed hard enough and other nobles do recall the Malnuexs having a daughter, but were told that she died of illness and that she was to never be mentioned again out of grief.
• Upper-Class Twit: As an outsider having smuggled her way into a space normally occupied only by blue bloods, this is Ruby's default opinion of everyone she meets there. At best they're simply ignorant and lack perspective while still being decent people, but at worst they're entitled incompetents that are more concerned with posturing and pageantry than anything happening in the real world. It's shown to not be an entirely fair assessment... but not exactly wrong either.
• Urban Segregation: Vale takes this to extremes, with massive walls separating the Lower, Merchants, Upper, and Royal quarters of the city. Travel between them is tightly inspected by guards, and it isn't uncommon for those from the Lower Quarter to be beaten or killed for the 'crime' of simply going up one level.
• Utility Magic: The primary magic used by the Black Arcana, creating everything from magical toilets and sinks, to quills that automatically draw ink from a nearby well, and even more impressive tasks such as ensuring a river doesn't overflow its banks within the city.
• Vulgar Humor: Ruby's sense of humor, to Weiss's embarrassment and Sun's delight.
• Water Wake-up: Sun dumps a bucket of water over Ruby to get her out of bed after Wildmage Adam's brutal arrest puts her in a funk. And later threatens to dunk her into the river after he has to carry her out of her room.
• We Do Not Know Each Other: Cinder and Ruby pretend not to know each other whenever there are witnesses around. Even when the Specialists encounter Ruby with Cinder and fellow Wildmage Adam, Cinder acts like a third party annoyed that her meeting with her fellow prisoner was interrupted by an Initiate.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Merlot claims to be this. He sees the Collegium as a corrupt and smothering organization that kills or imprisons anyone who thinks the world can be better. This is more or less the same opinion Ruby has on the subject. The difference is that in order to tear down the Collegiums, Merlot is perfectly fine committing mass murder of unrelated innocents. Merlot claims to have given advice as the resident expert in both Vale and Menagerie that would have spared the civilians if it was followed, but went ahead anyway even though he knew it wouldn't be.
• Wham Line: What's the first thing Qrow says when laying eyes on Ruby? "S-Summer!?" he wheezed, voice small and choked. "Is… Is that you…?".
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Ruby's trusted circle escape from Vale to reach Menagerie, desiring to rebuild the city. From then on, we only hear about Vale in politically important ways, so the fates of Ren, Nora, Martyn, Sun, Qrow, and other characters not important to government are not elaborated on.
• What You Are in the Dark: Weiss is unable to go through with the White's rite of passage, as it involved testing her conviction by forcing her to kill Ruby, not knowing it was an illusion. She only passes the second time after being memory-wiped because she knows Ruby can't actually be there this time.
• Wimp Fight: Everyone expects the 'honor duel' between Ruby and Malneux to turn into this. He abuses Ruby's lack of knowledge on duels to have his second, a trained Crimson Arcanist, take his place instead.
• Wisdom from the Gutter: Yang takes up this role in regards to Blake, as the latter has no real idea of what life is like in Vale's slums, or like in Vale in general.
• Wizard Duel: Subverted with Ruby versus Goodwitch. Ruby does very little impressive spellcasting, especially not to attack Goodwitch. Mostly, she just uses quick spells to counteract Goodwitch's own attacks. Goodwitch being a 'wizard' and treating the fight like a 'wizard duel' leaves her completely unprepared for an opponent who doesn't care to stay at range and trade spells, when she has two perfectly good fists to use instead.
• Wretched Hive: Vale's Slums.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: How Weiss sees Wildmage Adam Taurus, who in spite of being a Wildmage, still helped Ruby and her mentor escape the Grimm-infested Azure Archives.
• You're Cute When You're Angry: Weiss notes that Ruby looks adorable when she gets worked up over Ren's arranged marriage.
• Zerg Rush:
  • The cause for the fall of Menagerie, when it was swarmed by Grimm before the story begins.
  • A massive army of Grimm from Menagerie, consisting of at least Nevermore and Beowolves, attack Vale's Collegium from within the Azure Archives.

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