Done.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
[[Music/BlueStahli ULTRANumb]]
Okay... Wyldchild removed the entry for Aesop Amnesia using this as the edit reason:
- It's not Aesop Anemia, he thought just going back to his team and taking them to Vacuo would be enough to fix things and doesn't understand that the issues run much deeper and require far more of an effort from him to solve until things blow up.
- However, I'd like to explain why this reasoning doesn't work. In RWBY V6E1 "Argus Limited", Sun makes it perfectly clear to Blake that he is self-aware enough to know he has been a horrible leader and needs to improve:
- At no point does he imply just taking them to Shade would be enough to fix the issues. He outright says they need to "make up for lost time", a phrase typically associated for reconnecting. He even makes it clear when talking to Neptune his focus will be entirely on working with his team now:
- So the scene in Volume 6 firmly establishes that Sun is aware of his faults, and wants to improve. Before the Dawn however changes that to Sun suddenly invoking Never My Fault, constantly saying his team needs to just get over it already, and never admitting whether any of Scarlet's criticisms are valid or not until he sits down and chats with Velvet. So it takes the fact that Sun was self-aware enough to acknowledge his faults and decides to ignore that, subjecting him to Aesop Amnesia for the sake of making him learn an aesop he had already learned.
- Long short of it is, I object to their removal of the trope Aesop Amnesia and argue it is not Trope Misuse. In fact, this trope is just a microcosm of what many readers have seen as a downplayed case of Character Derailment for Sun, casting him in an unfavorable light just to make him need to learn a lesson. And while Character Derailment is Flame Bait, it is a prevalent enough topic amongst readers of the book that it may as well be YMMV.
The problem is that you've said that Sun's made it clear that he's been a 'horrible leader and needs to improve'. Now, as your quote shows, that's not quite what he says. He certainly does say he's been a horrible leader, but he doesn't say he needs to improve. He doesn't actually talk about improving at all. What he says is that both he and the guys are cool with a short hiatus. So, if they're all cool with it, what exactly does he mean by 'horrible leader'? We don't know. That's where the fandom starts having to interpret what he means by that. We also have to interpret what he means by 'gotta make up for lost time' because, again, that's not claiming he's going to improve as a leader: we do have a couple of clues from what he says (showing the guys around his old stomping grounds, training them to deal with the Wastelands), none of which is about him improving as a leader unless we decide to start projecting onto the scene (WMG, in other words) how leadership improvement could tie into showing the guys round Vacuo and training for the Wastelands.
Now, there's also a visible disconnect in the scene that focussing solely on Sun's words ignores. That is Neptune's behaviour at the end of the scene. In response to your second quote, Neptune rolls his eyes and then storms off, his face visibly upset. Sun's reaction is visible bafflement; he doesn't know what just caused Neptune's sudden mood swing.
Neptune's reaction is basically the set-up for the novel. The novel is about the disconnect between what Sun says to Blake and why Neptune storms off at the end of the scene. The book is essentially telling us what Sun thought he did wrong as a leader and needed to do to fix it was wrong. It's essentially telling us that when he told Blake that he and the guys were cool with a little hiatus, he was wrong: the guys weren't cool with it at all. It essentially tells us that the reason Neptune stormed off at the end of the scene is because the guys are upset with him. It essentially tells us that the reason why Sun is baffled over Neptune's mood swing is because he hasn't realised the guys aren't cool with it or how upset they really are about it.
With regards to the novel, Sun never forgets that he'd felt he'd been a bad leader, it tells us that his Vacuan attitude about solving problems (move on, don't dwell) is making the problem worse, not fixing it. The book tells that Sun understood they were upset, but that he had expected them to have moved on from that upset by now. What's puzzling him is that he doesn't understand why they're staying upset.
At the start of the book, Sun learns from Yatsu and Velvet that his team doesn't trust him. He is really surprised by this. He didn't know they didn't trust him. Throughout the book, we see that he knows he struggles to form attachments, that he has a habit of moving on to avoid attachments getting too deep, that he doesn't like being defined as part of a whole (rather than as an individual). He knows this means he's not dependable. What he doesn't understand is how this affects his team-mates, and that's why he doesn't understand the depth of their hurt. He has to learn they don't trust him, that they feel they're not good enough for him. He has to learn that they can't just get together as a group, do something together as a foursome, and that clears the air. He has to learn that they need to actually talk through their problems, that they want to be consulted on decisions that affect the team, that he values their input, that they want to support him, that they know he wants them to support him.
The book does not portray him as Never My Fault (from an audience perspective; some characters do think he's this). What it does is portray him as The Unapologetic (about the stuff that matters) and Poor Communication Kills, while using him to deconstruct The Dulcinea Effect.
Edited by Wyldchyld If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
... Okay you have a lot of points. Though if that was the intent the show was going for, it only really makes sense after the book is already released. Again, this series is as subtle as a brick to the face, and if judging that scene on its own, Neptune's reaction looks more like he's just not too excited at Sun's proclamation of gearing them up for the wasteland, especially with how casually the two were talking about Blake a second ago. It feels like the novel has to recontextualize the scene to make it fit that scenario, whereas if you take the scene point blank, it just looks like Neptune not being happy with going to the wasteland and Sun expressing confusion at him suddenly being pissed, which falls in line with his preestablished Innocently Insensitive characterization. Alright, I retract my motion to restore Aesop Amnesia. While I've got you hear though, mind checking out the YMMV page? There was an... incident regarding something I'd rather not get into and I'd like to make sure the page is objective as can be. People can easily be blind to their bias' after all, and it would probably be better if you took a look at the entries I wrote up to make sure they are alright.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
Since you're now talking about interpretation and how you feel about a scene (which is completely valid), we're looking at a YMMV trope and not an objective one. I'm happy to help you look for a YMMV trope because the way you word it here makes it sound like a valid interpretation to make (the feeling that novel changes the impact of a scene as if it's been retooled after the fact). That sounds like a trope to me.
Edited by Wyldchyld If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Hey, shouldn't the Adaptational Jerkass bit be in YMMV? It's purely subjective and (in my opinion) inaccurate anyway, seeing as the book only expanded on flaws Sun very much already had in the show (also worth pointing out that the way he acts around Blake is probably very different to the way he acts around his team anyway).
(oh goodness my pfp is ancient please ignore it)
Edited by EpicBecky Hide / Show Replies
No. Adaptational Jerkass is not a YMMV trope, and only YMMV tropes are to be put in YMMV. Adaptational Jerkass is an objective trope, and is in effect whenever a character is more of a Jerkass in one medium than they are in another. Regardless of context which would likely be more elaborated in Justified Trope but even then that requires speculation, if the character acts more like a jerkass in on medium compared to the original medium, it's the case. From an objective standpoint, this is the case for not only Sun, but Coco, Fox, Scarlet, Nebula, and Octavia. They all had no character in the source material, but they are subjects of this trope since they are at best a Jerk with a Heart of Gold now (Coco & Fox), a flat out jerkass that gets better over time (Scarlet & Octavia), or close to a Sociopathic Hero (Nebula). Sun meanwhile is somewhere in between the first and the second case. He's a lot more self-centered in the book, even if its unknowingly, and regularly invokes Not My Fault in regards to his actions towards his team despite owning up to it in the Series Proper, though he does get better towards the end thanks to Velvet, and even before then was still a good dude outside of that. So from an objective standpoint, Sun is a subject of this trope.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
Trope entries should never be 100% spoiler tagged. The information outside the spoiler tags can't be zero context either. The below entry therefore needs rewriting.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal:
- Bertilak is betrayed by Carmine and the Crown at some point, being turned into an Aura vessel to fuel Jax's semblance. As Sun and Velvet are freeing the Aura vessels, a self destruct sequence is triggered on the bunker, but Bertilak helps Sun and Velvet escape before it goes off. Once they're safe, he admits he's come to respect the two despite being Faunus, and declares his intent to hunt down Carmine for what she's done.
- Gillian was a Love Martyr to her brother Jax, and only acted as a member of the Crown for his sake. However, once it becomes clear the Crown has lost, Jax attempts to destroy Shade Academy, killing himself and Gillian in the process. When Gillian doesn't want to go through with it, he uses his Semblance on her and tries to steal all her aura for himself (which wouldn't kill her, as her Semblance would shut off before she would be completely out of Aura - something Jax already knew as he had forced her to do this once before when they were children, despite that it might kill her, so he wouldn't have to rely on her anymore - but in the midst of battle would leave her extremely vulnerable). Luckily, Yatsuhashi is able to intervene, and distraught at his betrayal, she uses her Semblance to boost Yatsuhashi's so that he can put Jax in a vegetative state.
I couldn't figure out how to write it without spoiler tag swiss cheesing it, so I decided just 100 percent do it, figured you'd take notice, and be able to rewrite it.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
Deus ex Machina was removed for being too YMMV. It did have a section that was talking about potential impact on the main show, but the rest was objectively the trope. I'm therefore suggesting the following rewrite, having stripped out the discussion about the other characters in the main show.
- Deus ex Machina: Grimm suddenly being attracted to both Aura and negativity, despite the main show only establishing that Grimm are attracted to negativity. During the battle for Shade, the Grimm congregate on the battlefield as normal, but then attack only the Crownsmen because of their excessively powerful Auras. This saves the day for the Academy, who couldn't win without this unexpected twist. Fox reveals to Gillian that the Grimm are being attracted to the enhanced Aura she's given to the Crownsmen; while Coco does question if Fox is telling the truth, the Grimm largely ignore the Academy forces until the Crown is defeated.
Edited by Wyldchyld If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading. Hide / Show Replies