RWBY / Tropes U to Z

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RWBY provides examples of the following tropes:

Tropes U-V

• Umbrella Drink: In the Yellow Trailer, Yang swaggers up to the nightclub bar, orders a drink, and adds as an afterthought that she wants one of those little umbrellas in it.
• Undying Loyalty:
  • Qrow's loyalty to Ozpin is due to the latter making him feel valued and trusted, despite his bad-luck Semblance causing him to distance himself from his friends and family for their own safety. When Qrow learns the Awful Truth about Ozpin's Forever War against Salem, he goes over the Despair Event Horizon, outright assaulting Ozpin's current host, claiming that meeting him was the worst luck of his life, and spiraling further into his alcoholism to cope.
  • Roman Torchwick and Neopolitan, to the point of receiving an Origins Episode novel, RWBY: Roman Holiday. After Roman's death in the Battle of Beacon, Neo pursues the ones she holds responsible for his death.
  • Ironwood expects Undying Loyalty from those beneath him, from his second-in-command Winter to his handpicked Ace-Ops elite squad. This leads to Clover's death when his adherence to Ironwood's orders to arrest Team RWBY and their allies allows Tyrian to kill him when he attempts to capture Qrow; the rest of the Ace-Ops and Winter eventually realize Ironwood has gone too far and defect from him.
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: The show initially portrayed teenagers settling into an elite Academy that trains people to fight the world's monsters, while the darker elements built up in the background. Volume 3, Chapter 6 blindsided the fandom when the darker elements suddenly took centre stage by having one of the heroes framed during the tournament arc; on live, global television, she is arrested after appearing to brutally assault her defeated opponent. Afterwards, the creators released a letter to the fandom stating that the show was intended to become darker from the beginning, and adults should now start vetting each episode before letting younger viewers watch them because it would only keep getting darker.
• Unflinching Walk: Subverted in "Fall". After seemingly defeating Yang with a barrage of shots, Mercury starts to walk away, smirking, before an explosion behind him (caused by Yang powering up her Semblance) causes him to turn back around.
• Unintentional Backup Plan: While Oz makes it clear that he doesn't think the heroes are anywhere near ready take on Salem's forces, he and Qrow try anyway because they have no alternative plan for protecting either the school or the Relic of Knowledge. During the confrontation, the group unsurprisingly does not do well against the villains. What Oz didn't know was that there were two other plans in play at the same time: Blake rallying the Faunus of Menagerie is what stops the White Fang assault on the school and Raven playing Cinder like a fiddle is what prevents Cinder from obtaining the Relic. While the heroes all learned about Blake's plan, only Yang knows the role that Raven played.
  Qrow: I don't know how, but we did it, Oz.
• Unnaturally Looping Location: In Volume 9, every time a character tries to walk directly to the tree, they find themselves looping constantly in the location they're in. Ruby decides on the beach in the first episode to head there to gain the high ground and see the lay of the land, but she constantly loops until she gives up in tears. When Blake tries to warn Weiss against trying that in the second episode, Weiss dismisses Blake's fairy-tale logic in favour of "real" logic. Not only does she experience the same looping as Ruby, but when she tries a throw a rock at the tree, it also loops and strikes her in the back of the head.
• The Unreveal:
  • During the Volume 2 climax, Velvet starts to reach for a box she carries at her waist, but is stopped by Coco. Coco tells her that she's spent all semester building up her weapon and not to waste it here. Velvet puts it away and continues fighting unarmed. What her weapon actually is only gets revealed during the Volume 3 climax.
  • During Qrow's arrival at Beacon in Volume 3, he picks a fight with Winter and they tear up the courtyard fighting each other. However, despite it having been mentioned in both Volumes 1 and 2 that he fights with a scythe, Qrow uses a huge sword that transforms into a gun. When Winter begins summoning her ice-avatars against him, he unlocks his sword, which begins to break apart and bend into a scythe shape. However, before the transformation can get very far, he abruptly stops it, puts his weapon away, and simply beckons Winter to come after him. She takes the bait, but the fight is stopped by Ironwood, whom Qrow had spotted approaching. His scythe is only revealed in the Volume 3 climax.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee:
  • In the Volume 1 episode "Players and Pieces", all Ruby says is "I've got a plan, cover me!" A minute of combat elsewhere and the plan is being put into place.
  • In the Volume 8 episode "Creation", the heroes successfully carry out Phase One of their plan; the audience is given a flashback detailing the entire plan before Phase Two begins. Phase Two begins to go wrong when the CCT loses its signal just as Team JNR is trying to give the kingdom an emergency broadcast message.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: A young Cinder tries stealing Rhodes' sword to kill her abusive stepfamily, prompting him to train her as a Huntress so she can legally escape from her torture. Several years later, he gives her a twin of the sword she once stole, saying she only has a few more years left before freedom is finally hers. Unfortunately, the step-sisters finding this sword is what causes Cinder to snap; thanks to his training and years of torture, she kills her family and then him when he tries arresting her. This sets her on the path that leads to her Huntress skills and lust for power making her useful to Salem in her Secret War to destroy the Huntsman Academies and steal the Relics the Academies protect.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: While dueling with Ruby on top of an airship, Neo eventually corners her with the blade side of her parasol-sword. Seconds later, Ruby activates the umbrella function button, causing Neo to fly off the airship.
• Verbal Backpedaling: Sun engages in a very awkward bit of this in "Menagerie" when Blake's dad doesn't take his comment of Blake "having moves" very lightly.
• Vibrant Orange: Downplayed. Though no major character is associated with the color orange, a few exhibit vibrant personalities while working orange into their color scheme:
  • Though the excitable and extroverted party girl Yang Xiao Long's associated color is yellow, she commonly wears complimenting orange garments such as belts, socks, gloves, and her signature orange scarf.
  • Nora Valkyrie is an optimistic, energetic fighter whose bright orange hair compliments her personality, even though she rarely wears orange.
  • Penny Polendina is an honorable, outgoing hero with energy to spare. Though she does not wear orange clothing, she has bright orange hair that, regardless of style, makes her stand out.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Roman Torchwick in Season Two's finale: Blake is given a level in badass by combining Dust cartridges with her Semblance, and she surprises him by being a much more challenging opponent.
• Villainous Friendship:
  • Roman Torchwick and Neo Politan seem to go along really well and actually care about each other. When Ruby send Neo flying off the airship they had captured Roman scream her name genuinely worried, then proceed to curb-stomp Ruby.
  • Emerald and Mercury also qualify. While they snark at each other quite often, they do also seem to care about each other to some extent and they sure make an excellent team on the battlefield.
• Villain Song:
  • "From Shadows" is not only the theme for protagonist Blake Belladonna and reflects her views, but also reflects the views of her partner Adam Taurus, with the two finding a common ground in their shared disdain for humanity as they attack a Schnee Dust Company train and fight against their robotic guards.
  • "Sacrifice" becomes one with the full context of the story. As with From Shadows, it is the theme for Cinder and it is a perspective she shares with Salem. The song is all about how Ozpin keeps the people of Remnant and his followers blind from the truth so they will be willing sacrifice themselves in his war and how Ozpin can't uses their life's for his goals.
  • "When It Falls", the opening theme of Volume 3, is either from Cinder or Salem's perspective, and describes how the world will fall and innocents will perish in massive quantities. The singer goes on to blame the subject (likely Ozpin) for the death and destruction that will befall their people, and how division and disharmony will be rampant in this new Dystopia.
  • "I'm the One" plays during Emerald and Mercury's tournament battle against Coco and Yatsuhashi. The song is sung from the perspective of Emerald and Mercury, talking about how their pasts have placed their combat and Semblance abilities far above those of their opponents. Some of the smack-talking and boasting in the song coincide with dialogue and actions that occur during the fight. Coco and Yatsuhashi, who are considered some of Beacon Academy's star fighters, are completely curb-stomped by the villainous duo, confirming how dangerous Emerald and Mercury are to student-level fighters.
  • "Divide" first plays during the ending of the Volume 3 finale, which introduces the Big Bad, Salem. During the show's pilot episode and the final episode of Volume 3, Salem gives a long speech about the origin of legends and humanity, and how Ozpin's correct to consider humanity stronger when it unites. She boasts of her plan to divide humanity and destroy everything that Ozpin has worked for, concluding that she can't wait to watch him burn. The song "Divide" takes its lyrics from Salem's two speeches, also ending with the desire to watch him burn. From Volume 4, certain refrains from the song play in the background whenever she is on screen and scheming.
  • "Lionize" is introduced during the Volume 6 Character Short which details how Adam became a villain. The song is a self-aggrandizing boast about how a lifetime of torture and abuse at the hands of humanity creates a hero that will become immortalized as a legend for crushing and subjugating humanity. The Short is about how the Faunus elevate Adam in power and status for being the hero they've been yearning for, to fight humanity for their rights. However, the Short also ends with Adam losing everything because ego, selfishness and obsession leads to everyone who once had faith in him turning on him for becoming a monster.
  • "All Things Must Die" plays during the fight between Raven Branwen and Cinder Fall in the Vault of the Spring Maiden. Reflecting the views of both villains, the lyrics reflect the battle as they explain that all things come to an end, and that the others' life is about to be ended. As the song progresses, they urge the other to give up and surrender to death.
  • "One Thing" plays when Neo returns to the screen in Volume 6, explaining why she's decided to fight Cinder. It hints at her past, suggesting that she was alone and without purpose until Roman Torchwick changed her life and gave her a name. She blames Cinder for what happened to Roman and that she's fallen onto hard times once more since his death. The Neo that fights Cinder is wearing tattered clothing and Roman's hat, and Cinder has to directly address the death of Roman to end the fight.
  • The ironically named "Hero", which reflects the views of General James Ironwood as he swears to do anything in his power to protect his people and kingdom by any means necessary. However, after he decides that those means will require him to betray his allies, the song takes on new meaning.
  • Ok Goodnight's "Awake" is adapted into a theme for Cinder, reflecting her views as she kills her tormentors and betrays her mentor in search of identity.
  • Played for Laughs with "That's a Big Ursa!", a tuned and remixed version of some of Russel Thrush's dialogue regarding a massive Grimm. It was featured exclusively on the Volume 1 DVD.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Ruby and Weiss are best friends who spend most of their time willfully disregarding each other's opinions, and in Weiss's case, denying that they're best friends.
• Vocal Evolution:
  • Compared to what was heard in the trailers, the voice acting in episode 1 has improved significantly. Played with as it's not actually the actresses. Complaints about Ruby's voice in the Yellow trailer were revealed to be hollow, as they were recorded after the first episode. Michael Jones, husband of Ruby's actress, pointed out that it's less about the acting and more about the delivery of the dialogue, as well as post-editing done by the sound team.
  • At the start of the series, Ruby's voice is not high-pitched as it would become later on, as it's actually closer to her actress' natural voice.
  • Volume 3 has had another noticeable shift in the voice work. Blake and Weiss sound a little more like their actresses' natural speaking voices, Emerald sounds a little older and wearier, and in general the quality of the performances has improved a lot.
• Vomit Discretion Shot:
  • Episode 1 ends with Jaune Arc getting airsick and vomiting. The view during the scene is of exterior the airship they are in.
  • Episode 2 begins with an immediate follow up to this scene. This time, we see Jaune on screen, but he turns around so his body obscures the vomit.
  • "Destiny" has Nora vomiting into a trashcan directly after consuming some of Ren's "health drink" for Pyrrha.

Tropes W

• Walking Shirtless Scene: If you're from Vacuo, you show off your abs. Apparently Vacuo's idea of formal attire, at least for men, is to just button up their shirt. When the students from all four kingdoms are lined up in their formal military attire, Vacuo stands out because their "uniform" is "We're all wearing shirts now."
• War Is Hell:
  • The Great War in the series history was as terrible as it sounds. One hundred years of political and cultural tension erupted into ten years of brutal conflict between the alliances of Mistral and Atlas against Vale and Vacuo. Countless soldiers died in battle and just as many villages were lost to Grimm attacks while all of their capable fighters were drafted in the war. Humanity came perilously close to extinction until the final battle in Vacuo.
  • General Ironwood and Professor Ozpin do not agree on how to handle threats of war and terrorism. Ironwood throws military might at problems whereas Ozpin prefers investigation before making a move. Glynda mentions that Ozpin has experience everyone else lacks and he is implied to be unusually ancient, probably having lived through Remnant's last war of 80 years ago. Although Ironwood thinks Ozpin is prepping his students for war, Ozpin is actually hoping the kids never have to fight one.
    Ironwood: Do you honestly believe your children can win a war?
    Ozpin: I hope they never have to.
• Wave-Motion Gun:
  • In the Black Trailer, Blake and Adam carry out a train heist. Their cargo is guarded by a Spider Tank that possess cannons. When it merges its cannons, the resulting blast is powerful enough to send the pair flying.
  • Penny Polendina's weapon, Floating Array, is eight separate swords that can either shoot minor blasts as pairs, or one major blast with all 8. She rarely needs to use it on its full power, but when it does, it's quite spectacular, whether it's cuting an airship in half, wiping out a character's Aura in one hit, halting a Megoliath in its tracks, and when she adds her Maiden powers to it, taking down Cinder in one lightning-powered blast.
• Weapons Kitchen Sink: The series plays this incredibly straight, with literally every single character wielding some kind of unique weapon; the only commonality is that the vast majority have some kind of gun. As an example, among the four protagonists we have a scythe/Sniper Rifle, a rapier that uses magical Dust, a ninjato/kusarigama with a pistol in the hilt^note And on top of that, the sheath has a blade and grip so it can function as a sword too, and shotgun gauntlets. The rest of the cast uses everything from the basic sword-and-shield combo to a weaponized coffee thermos.
• We Help the Helpless: In one of Professor Port's lectures he describes the job of Huntsmen as being there to protect people who cannot protect themselves.
• Weird Moon: Remnant has a moon that is partially shattered. While it does appear to rotate relative to Remnant, it doesn't show any sign of the lunar phases associated with Earth's real life moon. Remnant's moon is always depicted in full glow, but the degree of shattering that's visible depends on the moon's rotation. There is a phase which displays the unbroken face; during that stage, there's no sign the moon is damaged at all, and no sign of any of the blasted chunks. As it rotates, more and more of the shattering appears. When the shattered face is fully in view, the blasted fragments seem to extend out towards Remnant slightly; the full view of the shattered side of the moon has only been seen during a period the characters described as 'the night of the full moon'. It is revealed in "The Lost Fable" that the moon was shattered by the gods leaving the earth.
• Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Ruby's reaction to Weiss is to call her princess after Weiss scolds her for 'exploding a hole in front of the school'.
• Wham Episode: In Volume 3, Fall. Remnant's history of fairy tales are discussed, and it's revealed that some of them are actually true stories that were deliberately disguised as fairy tales to protect humanity from panic and chaos. There are four Maidens who represent the four Seasons. They were gifted with incredible, magical power by an old man who possessed incredible, magical power of his own. Cinder has attacked the Fall Maiden and stolen half her power. The Fall Maiden's protectors want Pyrrha to inherit her remaining power. Confirmed in livestream interviews with the creators that the Maidens were invented between the end of Volume 2 and the beginning of Volume 3, resulting in the original plot needing to be rewritten and no foreshadowing for them having occurred. The Maidens turn out to be the key to everything that is happening in the plot, having been created by Ozpin, who is the old man of the fairy tale and who possessed this magical power as part of a curse bestowed upon him by the gods for failing to have defeated Salem thousands of years ago.
• What Does This Button Do?: In "Battle of Beacon", Torchwick says it word for word while playing with a hijacked Atlesian airship, seeing what different buttons do. He even has the childlike mentality, to boot.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In "The Shining Beacon", the first thing Yang does when she and Ruby arrive at Beacon Academy is ditch Ruby and rush off with her friends. However, when Ruby finds her way into the school hall where the new students are gathering, Yang has saved her a spot and her friends are nowhere in evidence. Later in the same episode, Ruby tells Yang that being pushed ahead by two years means that, unlike Yang, she didn't get to bring her friends with her to Beacon Academy. However, after this episode, any reference to the two sisters having friends in Signal Academy is never again mentioned, not even the friends of Yang that came with her to Beacon Academy. Justified for Yang's friends due to them being shown in the scene as shadow silhouettes, a Volume 1 technique used for background characters that had no plot relevance.
• What Measure Is a Mook?: When Team RWBY attempts to stop Roman's train in the tunnels underneath Mountain Glenn, they discover that each carriage contains a bomb that detonates at set intervals, creating sinkholes that allow the Grimm to enter the tunnels from the surface. The train's purpose is to blast a hole through Vale's defences so that the Grimm can enter the city. To stop the White Fang from succeeding, Team RWBY have no problem throwing their opponents off the top of a speeding train into the waiting jaws of the Grimm that are chasing them. When the attempted invasion is successfully foiled, the girls are merely worried about getting some rest after their hard work. Meanwhile, the villains debate the impact on their wider goals that will be caused by the sheer amount of White Fang members that have died in the tunnels as a result of Team RWBY's intervention. They're more concerned about the deaths than Team RWBY are.
• What Is Evil?:
  • In "The Stray", Weiss and Blake argue about whether or not the White Fang is evil. Weiss describes them as "pure evil", but Blake argues that the discrimination they receive from humanity is the reason why they hate humans and use such drastic measures.
  • In "Alone Together," Blake ends up having a similar debate with her Evil Former Friend Ilia, now a high-ranking member of the White Fang. When Blake demands to know how Ilia can possibly think that attacking innocent people is the right thing to do, Ilia retorts that there's no such thing as innocents or "the right thing to do," only what's best for the Faunus, and their methods are perfectly justified because humans as a whole either actively hate Faunus or do nothing to stop the hate from happening.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In Volume 7, Ironwood is being seen by both the citizens of Mantle and at least some of the heroes as increasingly dictatorial and unreasonable in his decision-making process and the human suffering he's willing to overlook for the sake of achieving the "greater good". When he responds to Robyn's increasing attacks on the construction supplies being diverted from Mantle to Amity Tower, he contemplates the possibility of enforcing martial law on Mantle but a frustrated Nora quickly challenges it. When he tries to defend it by saying everyone must make sacrifices, Nora angrily notes that Mantle is bearing the burden alone. He backs down as a result. Over time, he becomes less willing to back down until he finally crosses the line into true villainy at the end of Volume 7.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?:
  • Elm Ederne speaks in a noticeable, but somewhat unidentifiable accent that sounds vaguely European.
  • Christopher Sabat gives Arthur Watts what seems to be an early 20th century upper class American or Transatlantic accent with certain aspects of it updated for the 2010s, except that almost nobody in real life or in most modern media, except for Series/Frasier, speaks in this modernized refined accent.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve:
  • "Dance Dance Infiltration" ends with the symbol of a chess queen flashing across a video screen as Beacon's clock tower strikes midnight. It turns out to be Cinder hacking in so that she can have control over the matchups of the Vytal Festival battles, as seen in Volume 3.
  • "Midnight" depicts Cinder Fall's past as she is abused by an Atlesian Hotelier and secretly trained by a Huntsmen. When her abusive step-family found that Cinder had a sword one night, she finally snapped and killed them with the Huntsman, Rhodes, seeing her kill the Hotelier at midnight and is shortly killed himself following a failed attempt to arrest her.
• White Mask of Doom:
  • The Grimm are jet-black creatures with certain bone-white protrusions across their body that functions like armour and the creatures appear to exist for the sole purpose of destroying humanity. All of them have these bone-white protrusions covering their faces like masks, highlighting the glowing red eyes within. The masks often have a few red spiral tattoo designs on them.
  • Members of the White Fang wear white masks that hide their identities. The person who came up with the idea (implied to be Adam) wanted to evoke the terror and horror of the Grimm in the minds of humanity whenever the White Fang commit acts of terrorism. Ordinary members have plain white masks, but high-ranking members have white masks with red tattoo designs that again resemble the red markings of the Grimm.
  • Raven's mask is similar to that of a high-ranking member of the White Fang, being white with some red tattoos. It is shaped like the face and beak of a raven, however, and she is not a member of the White Fang. She is the leader of a tribe of bandits. The mask is used to hide the highly visible fire that comes out of the eyes of a Maiden whenever they use their magical power; she has been hiding her identity as the Spring Maiden to try and throw Salem off her scent.
• Whole Episode Flashback:
  • "Beginning of the End" shows how Cinder met Emerald, Mercury and the White Fang, and how she stole the Fall Maiden's powers. The last few minutes, however, cut back to the present.
  • "The Lost Fable" reveals how Ozpin and Salem met, the cause of their conflict, why Ozpin reincarnates, and how the moon was shattered. The last few seconds, however, cut back to the present.
  • "Midnight" reveals Cinder's past before she joined Salem where she was adopted and abused by an Atlesian Hotelier and her two daughters with no way to fight back until she was trained by a Huntsman named Rhodes after he found that she stole his swords. When her abusive step-family found out about her hiding a weapon one night however, Cinder snapped and killed them as Rhodes arrives at Midnight and attempts to arrest Cinder after seeing it. Following a duel, Rhodes is killed by Cinder as she finally takes off her shock collar. The last few minutes of the episode, however, cut back to the present.
• The Whole World Is Watching:
  • The Vytal Festival celebrates the cultures of the world and pits the students of the elite Huntsman Academies against each other in competitive matches for their kingdom's honour. A montage is shown of people all around the world from different walks of life all watching the tournament at the same time. As part of her plan to destroy the world, the Big Bad uses the event's global reach to frame the Beacon students and headmaster as dishonourable, and enable The Heavy to control the broadcast to discredit all Huntsman Academies and every kingdom's leadership. This causes massive global spikes in Grimm activity, destroys Beacon, frames Atlas for the attack, and leaves humanity wallowing in fear, mistrust and confusion.
  • Following the communications system between Kingdom's going down, General James Ironwood attempts to restore communications by converting Amity Colosseum into Amity Communications Tower by the time the heroes reach the Kingdom of Atlas. However, the reason for the supplies needed to get it running are kept a secret and cause tension between the people of Mantle as a result. Ironwood planned to tell the world about the existence of Salem when Amity was up and running. When he learned that Salem herself was on her way to Atlas however, Ironwood abandoned his original plan and decided to only save Atlas while leaving Mantle to die. Because of this, Ruby Rose decides to finish the original plan and manages to briefly restore worldwide communications and send a message revealing everything they had learned about the situation up to that point. While the majority of the message is shown all across Remnant to characters from previous Volumes, the ending is cut off after Penny succumbs to a virus and let's go of the communications tower. The very last scene of Volume 9 showing Vacuo reveals that Ruby's message wasn't in vain as ships from all over Remnant were shown guarding the capital.
• Whoosh in Front of the Camera: In Volume 1, school initiation consists of the new students being thrown off a cliff into a monster-filled forest to find a "relic" (represented by chess pieces) and return safely back to the cliff. As Yang walks through the forest, loudly drawing attention to herself, a sudden black blur streaks across the front of the camera with a whoosh sound; the music drops to a sustained bass note to make it seem ominous. Yang then investigates rustling in the undergrowth, revealing two black Ursae that instantly attack her. While she kills the one, the second is killed from behind by a new arrival: Blake, who was the source of the black blur and had been shadowing Yang all along.
• Wicked Witch: Cinder is introduced in the pilot episode as a shadowy figure, whose face is lost in the shadows and only her legs are visible, wearing distinctive shoes made of glass. She rescues Roman when he robs a Dust store, and fights Glynda with an array of what seems to be magical ability. She creates glowing golden runes around her, as the gold thread in her clothing glows, and the only thing in her shadowed face that is visible are a pair of glowing golden eyes. She's later confirmed to be the Fall Maiden, who illegally stole the powers of the real Fall Maiden; while she can use the full range of elemental magic, she favour fire magic above all others.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises:
  • When Cinder's group first attack Amber, Amber is able to put down Mercury and Emerald. As she is about to kill Emerald, Cinder shoots her in the back. As the arrow strikes, Amber's head jerks up, her eyes widening and irises shrinking in reaction to the injury and the ambush.
  • When Yang is having a nightmare about losing her arm to Adam, she starts to fight back until she realises she's suddenly defenceless. When she realises that Adam is abruptly right in front of her, about to strike, her eyes become huge and her irises shrink.
  • During the climax of Volume 5, Cinder comes to a shocking realisation that results in her eyes opening very wide and irises shrinking in utter horror. During the battle of Haven, Raven and Cinder fight over who gets the Relic of Knowledge. Raven defeats Cinder by kicking her into the abyss below them, breaking Cinder's obsidian mask in the process to reveal the scarred left half of her face. Shocked by her defeat, Cinder's surviving eye widens and the iris shrinks, just as Raven freezes her to ice, leaving her face fixed in this expression as she falls.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: The soundtrack albums has a few surprise appearances by Lamar Hall, delivering rap verses in "I Burn", "Caffeine", "Like Morning Follows Night", “Ignite”, and, perhaps most bizarrely of all, “Big Metal Shoe”.

• Word Salad Lyrics: While most of the time Jeff manages to make thematically coherent song, "Caffeine" is full of nonsensical if cool-sounding lines.
• The Worf Effect:
  • At the conclusion of Volume 2, Team RWBY has to split up to stop a train from breaching the kingdom's defensive walls. Neo's first fight in the show is against Yang, the team's power-fighter. However, Yang is barely able to land a solid hit on Neo, who is acrobatic and keeps dodging or deflecting Yang's attacks. Neo's taunting style of fighting also aggravates Yang's quick temper. While Neo defeats Yang and renders her unconscious, she doesn't suffer a single injury from Yang.
  • In Volume 1 Episode 8, Teams RWBY and JNPR spend most of the episode taking down a Giant Nevermore and a Giant Death Stalker. In the Volume 2 finale, Coco destroys several in a few seconds with her minigun. Coco is then effortlessly trashed in Volume 3 to show how tough Mercury and Emerald are compared to the students of the school they've infiltrated.
• A World Half Full: Remnant is a Death World, swarming with mysterious monsters whose sole purpose appears to be the destruction of humanity. Civilization clings to existence with the aid of powerful fortifications, natural barriers and Dust, relying on four safe havens and specially trained Huntsmen to hold back the tide; it's implied that this is unprecedented protection compared to most of humanity's known history. Attempts to expand often fail, and both violent prejudice and criminal conspiracies are additional threats to humanity's survival. However, this doesn't stop dedicated heroes from finding solutions that first begin with a positive outlook. Volume 3 kicks the villains' plan into high gear, sending the storyline into much darker territory where the fight between hope and despair is revealed to be the primary battleground between the Big Good and Big Bad. The Atlas Arc explores the relationship between trust and fear as the villains gain the upper hand and the heroes themselves succumb to despair; at the heroes' lowest point, their leader Ruby Rose is Driven to Suicide by the weight of her burdens before she comes through the other side renewed and more determined than ever.
• World of Badass: This story takes place in a world that is filled with eldritch monsters, giant suits of animated armor, magic-like Phlebotinum called Dust, Humongous Mecha, humanoid robots with optional machine guns for hands, Mix And Match Weapons and Swiss Army Weapons. The story begins with Beacon Academy, an Extranormal Institute where becoming a Huntsman/Huntress is about as certified-Badass as it gets, and already having superhuman combat abilities is an entry requirement. Even the resident Butt-Monkey is capable of decapitating a ten-foot demonic bear with one swing of his sword. An ancient shopkeeper is capable of throwing a declined card like it's a throwing-star, causing it to get stuck in the counter like he'd just thrown a knife and pet dogs can fight monsters, as seen when Ruby and Yang's small corgi helps the heroes battle mecha and Grimm.
• World of Ham: There is as much over-the-top action as there are over-the-top interactions between the cast. The overly serious characters are few and far between. Even then, they are not above indulging in their companions' shenanigans.
  Ruby: Justice will be swift! Justice will be painful! It will be DELICIOUUSSS!!!
  Weiss, Blake, and Yang: YEAH!!!
• World of Technicolor Hair: Eighty years ago, a terrible global war sought to suppress individuality and artistic expression. In memory of that, people name children after colour associations, and express their personalities through their clothing styles and hair colours in ways that often link in some manner to their Aura colours. Regardless of whether hair colours are natural or not, a wide variety of implausible and impossible colours exist. Impossible examples include:
  • Green hair: Doctor Oobleck, Emerald Sustrai, Russel Thrush, Sage Ayana, and Reese Chloris.
  • Blue Hair: Neptune Vasillas, Ciel Soleil
  • Multi-coloured hair: Neopolitan (pink, brown, white, after the ice cream of the same name), Nadir Shiko (pink, black)
  • Other colours: Nebula Violette (purple), May Zedong (magenta).
• Wretched Hive: Mistral is home to Remnant's largest black market, a place to find illegal goods and hired killers, and the ideal place for "thieves and traitors" to hide due to the size of the kingdom and a lack of central authority making it difficult to enforce the law in the outer cities. That being said, the kingdom is still a place of high culture and technology, and for the upper class it is the fashion, architecture, and entertainment capital of the world.
• Wrong Context Magic: Humanity doesn't believe magic exists, but the Four Maidens secretly possess powers that neither humans nor trained Huntsmen can wield, and which don't come from either Dust or Semblances. Unlike Semblances, this power can be wielded even if a Maiden's Aura has broken. Remnant's secret history reveals that humanity has existed twice, originally gifted with magic before being destroyed by the gods and re-evolving into a fractured remnant of itself that can't wield magic. Two members of the original humans exist — the Big Bad and the Big Good. Except for the Big Bad, who uses her magic to craft new forms of the Grimm, all magic on Remnant originates from the Big Good: he created the Maidens, fathered the two progenitors of the Silver-Eyed Warriors, and gifted Qrow and Raven Branwen with the ability to shapeshift into their namesake birds.

Tropes X-Z

• X on a Stick: Nora uses a watermelon on a stick as an improvised hammer during the Food Fight in Vol. 2 Episode 1. She swings it hard enough to punt Yang through the roof of the cafeteria.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Salem is a being who combines the powers of Creation and Destruction to achieve the threat level she now poses to the entire world. Cursed with infinite life by the Pool of Life, Salem tries to drown herself in the Pools of Annihilation. However, waters of infinite destruction cannot destroy a being of infinite life. Instead of dying, she emerges as an unkillable force of pure destruction. Wielding magic from her mortal life and now able to control the Grimm, she is unstoppable by both mortal and magical means.
• You All Look Familiar: Background characters seem to be generated from a pool of possible features (skin color, hair style etc.) As such, some of them tend to look similar to each other. Some of these features seem to be recolored versions of the main cast, to boot. Most noticeable during Season 2.
• You Are Fat: In their tournament fight, Neon constantly taunts Yang about her figure. Before the fight even begins, Neon makes a crack about Yang being "top-heavy". After partially freezing Yang in place with ice Dust, she slaps her own backside and declares Yang is now "bottom-heavy", too. She later skates rings about Yang, telling her she really needs to go on a diet and invokes the trope. This finally causes Yang to blow her top.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Despite numerous opportunities and near-misses, the heroes fail to stop the villainous scheme of the Vale Arc from successfully completing in Volume 3, scoring only a few minor victories in response. The heroes' failures begin with their inability to stop the villains from infecting the control tower with a virus. They then fail to stop a bomb-loaded train from unleashing Grimm into the city, which enables the villains to establish themselves as allies by helping to save the city. The villains are then able to manipulate Yang into attacking an apparently defeated opponent during a live broadcast; they also manipulate Pyrrha into killing Penny during a live broadcast before using both moments in a speech over the global airwaves they've captured to trigger a massive Grimm invasion. Beacon Academy is destroyed, many people lose their lives including two important characters, Cinder obtains the Fall Maiden's full power and Salem is able to confirm the Relic of Choice is hidden somewhere in the school. The volume closes with Salem giving Ozpin a speech about how she intends to snuff out the hope of humanity and destroy everything Ozpin ever valued. All the heroes manage to do is save the city of Vale, which the villains don't care about; freeze the Grimm Wyvern to Beacon's destroyed tower, which now attracts more Grimm to the school and prevents it from being taken back by the Huntsmen; and permanently maim Cinder, which has left her obsessed with seeking vengeance against Ruby.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: When a Maiden dies, their power transfers either to a young female who is in their thoughts as they die, or jumps to a random, unknown eligible female if the Maiden's last thoughts are about a man or an older, ineligible woman. This power transfer can be deliberately manipulated by having a young, eligible woman murder a Maiden to obtain the power by ensuring the dying Maiden's final thoughts are of her killer. Cinder killed the Fall Maiden and Raven killed the Spring Maiden to gain their powers. Ozpin tried to use a machine to give Pyrrha the powers of the Fall Maiden but Cinder killing her stopped that. At a later point, it's revealed that this same thing happened with Raven and the Spring Maiden and would have happened with Winter and the Winter Maiden had Cinder not interfered and led to the Maiden passing her powers onto Penny instead.
• You Know What They Say:
  • In "Heroes and Monsters", as Torchwick and Neo have trapped Ruby in a perilous situation, Torchwick says the people he works for are going to change the world, and tries to communicate the message of "If you can't beat them, join them", but Ruby activates Neo's parasol before he can finish, sending her flying off the airship.
  • In the stinger of "Our Way", Emerald and Mercury watch Salem preparing the Grimm with a mixture of confusion and fear. Hazel explains to them what's going on by telling them about the old saying "if you want something done right, do it yourself".
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Blake's opinion on the White Fang group. She believed that they were still fighting for Faunus rights like their original intentions were. Though she does seem to think they have crossed the line after they become increasingly more violent.
• Zerg Rush:
  • The general strategy of the Grimm. While even novice huntsmen can cleave through packs of younger Grimm with ease, the sheer number of Grimm means that they will eventually overwhelm a defender if they prolong the assault. They launch continuous, relentless attacks, with each subsequent attack being worse and worse as the negative emotions caused by the previous attacks attract more Grimm to the area. And that's just the little ones...
  • During the events of Volume 8 when Salem's forces manage to take down the city defenses for Atlas, she uses an army of Grimm to charge in and destroy it with the Atlas Military being the only thing standing between them and the city.
• Zodiac Motifs: Adam Taurus, befitting his surname, is a bull Faunus; he has a human appearance with the exception of bull horns on his head.

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