Remembrance
Written by Miles Luna & Kerry Shawcross
Directed by Kerry Shawcross, Gray G. Haddock & Miles Luna
Directed by Kerry Shawcross, Gray G. Haddock & Miles Luna
Jacques: Many forget that you were there. My own daughter, a Schnee, on the grounds, defending another Kingdom! We need to remind them! And we need to show them that the Schnee family is just as strong as ever!
Weiss: Are you asking me if I'd like to sing, or telling me?
Weiss: Are you asking me if I'd like to sing, or telling me?
Weiss is back home, and her usual interactions with her father aren't peaceful.
Meanwhile, Team RNJR come across a massacred town, stirring unwelcome feelings in certain members.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Aborted Declaration of Love: At the end of Pyrrha's recorded training session for Jaune, she starts to say something personal, but stops and simply says that she's glad to be a part of his life. And given how his final moments with her went, he knows damn well what she wanted to say.
- Almost Dead Guy: When Ruby's group encounter their next village, they find it in smoking ruins. They locate a badly injured Huntsman who stays alive just long enough to tell them what happened before he dies.
- Big Fancy House: The Schnee family house is huge. It's filled with long corridors, inner balconies, huge rooms and grand staircases. Everything is simple and uncluttered, in shades of blue and white, and with family portraits scattered around the house... but footsteps echo eerily when walking and every single room is empty. The building acts more like a show room than a home and the portraits show people with deeply unhappy expressions.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Mr. and Mrs. Schnee are implied to argue frequently. Mrs. Schnee drinks frequently and Mr. Schnee is cold, obsessed with business and will only acknowledge Weiss's accomplishments and abilities when he can use them for his own personal gain. Whitley, the youngest child, doesn't like his oldest sister, Winter. Weiss is suspicious of Whitley's behaviour just because he treats her nicely and speaks respectfully about Winter. Winter apparently got the heck out of dodge as soon as she was able, judging from what we've seen of both the family and her. Portraits showing the family at a much younger age indicate that the entire family has been deeply unhappy for years.
- Bloodless Carnage: Played with. While there is little visible blood at Shion, the Huntsman has a small amount of blood from a wound, and this is the first time we've explicitly seen humans that are unambiguously dead, and quite a lot of them too.
- Continuity Nod:
- The Schnee family manor has two huge statues of knights similar to the ones that Weiss fought in her trailer.
- Jacques mentions Weiss's public singing ability, which is another nod to the same trailer.
- Distinction Without a Difference: When talking about his childhood family camping trips and complaining that his seven older sisters kept braiding his hair in pigtails, Jaune tells Ruby that he is more of a warrior's wolf-tail kind of guy. Ruby points out it is just a ponytail which he doesn't deny but stands by what he said.
- Due to the Dead: Nora asks if they should bury the Huntsman that dies just after he's finished telling them what happened to the village. Ren stalks off saying it's not safe to stay and they need to leave now. Even Nora seems surprised by Ren's unusual behaviour.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Ironwood's hair is bigger and more unkept, combined with a Perma-Stubble, something that makes him look like a Shell-Shocked Veteran.
- Family Theme Naming: All the Schnee children have names starting with "W" that evoke the colour white. The eldest child is Winter, followed by Weiss (German for 'White') and the youngest is Whitley (Anglo-Saxon for 'From the white meadow').
- Got Volunteered: When Mr. Schnee mentions Weiss singing at his upcoming (and just mentioned) charity, Weiss asks if she's been asked or told. He emphasizes that it would make a lot of people happy, implying the latter, and Weiss reluctantly acquiesces.
- Mood Whiplash: While travelling to the next village, the group are regaled by Jaune's memories of the hairstyles his seven sisters used to inflict on him as a child and the sorts of things his family used to do whenever they visited the village they're approaching. Then they spot the village... and it's a smoking ruin, destroyed by bandits and Grimm.
- Rotating Protagonist: Seems to be the format for this volume, as each main character is in a different place, dealing with their own problems. In this episode, the focus is constantly switching between what Weiss is dealing with at home and what Ruby is doing with team RNJR.
- This Explains So Much: When Nora learns about Jaune's seven sisters, she decides this explains everything she needs to know about Jaune's behavior over the past year.
- Tranquil Fury: Upon finding the village they're travelling to is completely destroyed, Ren becomes very silent and very grim. He walks off away from the others to stand staring at the devastation with his hands locked to his head, before turning around and stalking off, speaking curtly and grimly towards the others. He tells them not to bury the dead because they're not safe and need to move. Then he finds what is either a symbol the bandits left behind or a Grimm's giant hoofprint, and his expression changes into a look of stone-faced recognition.
"I'll always be here for you, Jaune."
