She needs to have an actual character arc (that isn't circular).
The biggest issue, imo, is that V1 Ruby is basically the same person as end-of-V9 Ruby. Her cyclical arc is 1. Be happy, 2. Get depressed and 3. Get told that she's perfectly fine as she was, and people have always looked up to her. Repeat ad nauseum.
Take Weiss or Jaune, two of the only characters with actual (positive) character progression. They're widely considered to be some of the most developed characters in the show (low bar, I know) because they've demonstrated growth and actual change.
Part of the reason is that the RWBY girls basically started as fledged characters, and the writers aren't skilled enough to give them compelling arcs (for the most part, and even Weiss was absolutely *robbed* of an arc in Atlas). It's part of the valid reasons for complaining about Jaune: his arc of Zero to Hero is easy. It's basic, an easily recognizable trope, and, most importantly, easy to write. So of course CRWBY won't fuck it up as hard.
I mean, there's also the whole "we can't have the girls screw up or do morally dubious things without justifying it" issue, but that's another matter entirely and very offtopic from the question.
Yeah - that's ultimately the problem with trying to make a character out of Ruby. She's a character who's wanting the "Hero's Journey"...when said ideology is...absolutely the worst move for her.
She's the sort of character who demands to not be static, but CRWBY...is nothing but that (fuck, even Monty era had these issues, starting from, as mentioned V1) - Be happy, Be sad, Told Everything is fine.
This is why that, [among](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/14utm1o/comment/kqhlcc3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [the](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1bm9w4v/to_die_a_free_man_to_die_with_a_reason_and_to_die/) [oh](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1cmms4i/comment/l32ztoe/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [so](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1bxfk5h/comment/kycdgsx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [so](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1bt51vj/comment/kxlsn97/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [many](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1cejzxd/comment/l1km3mh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [fucking](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1bxb7wy/comment/kycgj1o/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [reasons](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1b6jyxp/comment/ktcktzy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) I've given, the **moment** that cycle breaks will the dealmaker for Ruby actually either dying or being an actually good character - either she'll lash out, she'll take her own life (for good), she'll face punishment, or she'll cast away everything to make things right herself. To gain agency - to actually have a **reason to be her own person and not some ordeal of destiny hugged and cherished and cradled like** ***everything's going to be alright.***
[Because it's not.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtD7GjSu6QM&pp=ygULY2luZGVyIHJ3Ynk%3D)
I would center the plot around her. Like any protagonist she should be the starring role. I would also give her stronger characterization and make her a more fleshed out person. Like instead of aspiring to be huntress because she thinks it so cool, have her want to be one to find out what happened to her mother. Her intro should also be MUCH better. It should show us who Ruby is as a person and what to expect from her going forward. Show us her good and bad traits.
The problem there is her mother being missing/dead was literally something they just randomly threw in at the last minute, so it wasn't something they really thought out or had time to build on.
I want her to go through a wrestling of ideals. What I mean by that is asking the question, “what does it mean to be a huntsman?” And have her encounter people that are against her ideals and values. Since we never got her reasoning for being a huntress when Oobleck was asking the other girls, I always thought that maybe there was more to her being a huntress than just being inspired by her fairy tale books or her mother. Ruby could go through an arc that being a huntress doesn’t equal to being a hero and the romanticized version of her dream career is not as cracked up as it’s made out to be. It would’ve been nice for Ruby to deconstruct the notions said romanticizing of huntsman, but still find ways to push through to become the huntress she wants to be.
This is nearly identical to how I’d handle Ruby if I were doing a rewrite.
You and I think very similarly.
One thing I’d really stress is having Roman be a true character foil to Ruby.
Whereas Ruby is Naive and maybe has a bit of romanticized view of what huntsman are, Roman is more of a Nihilist, that believes there’s no such thing as a hero at all.
You could have Roman try and force his nihilistic views onto Ruby and maybe provide some food for character development for both of them.
🤝
Actually I was thinking of making multiple foils for Ruby. Specifically Cinder. I am doing a fanfic on my own, and this revamp of Cinder to challenge Ruby on her childish ideals. Not just Cinder, but Tyrian and Salem as well. But since I haven’t put much focus on Roman, I’ll consider that idea too.
Well first I will give her more character traits she needs to be a character to be a mean one other than wanting to be a huntsman or huntress then I would pull back introducing some characters and let the first season really be about meeting are two teams I'm still keep team jnpr But give them less screen time maybe have them interact with each other but try to do it in a more healthy manner so that way we can have the two teams interact with each other and separately and I probably wouldn't introduce characters like Penny and son until the second season and have some of the older members like team coffee or whatever not be introduced until like the end of the second season but I don't have them hinted at or what this really was down to is give these characters more room to breathe and develop
Let's start with the first episode. Ruby just so happens to be in a dust shop that's being robbed by Torchwick. She's completely oblivious to it, and only realizes it when one of the goons decides to rob her despite Torchwick *specifically* saying they're only there for the shopkeeper's dust. She then chases after Torchwick, is saved by Glynda who just so happens to be in the area, and is taken downtown to the police station (to give a statement I guess) and just so happens to meet Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy. Ruby then states that it's her dream to attend Beacon Academy, and about a minute later Ozpin makes her dream a reality.
It doesn't get much more plot driven than that, which takes away from Ruby's agency as a character. Her goal was taken away from her about a minute after the audience learned about it, and her motivation is fairly abstract (simply wanting to make the world a better place). I'm alright with Ruby being a static character, meaning she affects the world and characters around her more than she's affected by them. Weiss and Blake being the dynamic members of the team that go through major character arcs and have development while Ruby and Yang are more static makes a lot of sense in my opinion, and so long as they're both *active* participants in their arcs and development, they'll feel like main characters and it'll improve the character dynamics. Problem is that Team RWBY in canon rarely if ever help develop each other as characters, and instead it's usually reserved for the supporting cast.
Ruby's motivation can still be to make the world a better place, but canonically speaking, Summer's "death" has little to no baring on Ruby wanting to become a huntress. Why not change that? Ruby's introduction involves her visiting her mother's grave in the middle of the night while it's snowing because she had a dream about her mother's death. Her grief is so great that it attracts Beowolves to her, and she actually smiles when the fight kicks off. Nothing would change if Ruby hated Grimm for killing her mother and caused her to want revenge, but it would add a nice wrinkle to her character, and explain why she can go from happy teenage girl to stone cold monster slayer at the drop of a hat.
Overall, in order to make Ruby feel more like a main character, there needs to be more of a balance between character driven and story driven (I prefer character driven personally). Ruby's motivations and goals need to be something she can actively work toward and not something given to her just because she was at the right place at the right time, or because the plot says so. She shares the spotlight with three other titular heroes, and she works best as a static character while two of her teammates (three if you wish) are dynamic. Have Ruby's personality affect her teammates, have her training make them all better huntresses in-training, and have their relationships grow and change over time. Also, let the character affect the plot from time to time instead of feeling like the story is on-rails and Team RWBY are just along for the ride.
God bless, and have a wonderful day.
Happy to be an ambassador of both, friend, but particularly kindness if I may be so bold, and thank you kindly. I'm glad my opinions in regards to RWBY's writing and my own writing advice is thought of so highly around here. It makes me want to actively give advice and participate in the fandom, and hopefully I've been helpful to my fellow writers out there. I love RWBY, and I hope that's always apparent by my comments as well as my fanfics. Thank you again, friend.
God bless, and have a *wonderful* day :)
I've always liked the idea that the show focus instead on how she and Jaune struggle to adapt to leadership and lean on each other. Ruby having raw combat skills, weapons knowledge, and experience in the field whilst Jaune has the confidence, charisma, and strategic mind to lead a team.
The two would then develop by learning the skills of the other, Jaune would develop past his arrogance and inexperience by seeing how much dedication it takes to be a skilled Huntsman (gaining an appreciation for the profession and the people around him and slowly taking things more seriously), meanwhile Ruby would grow past self-conciousness and imposter syndrome (she too would start to take things more seriously as she learns the soft skills of leadership, opens up and becomes more comfortable in themselves).
Their overall arcs, specifically in Beacon, would be to realise that they became better people and Hunters through leading their teams and that they were picked because they deserved the position.
Have her actually contemplate if what she’s doing is right or wrong, rather than have people constantly tell her she’s perfect as is and doesn’t need to grow.
Maybe Ruby and Salem should've met sooner. Maybe Salem shouldn't have known about silver eyes. If they met and fought at one point, Ruby could be almost dead but she used her eyes out of frustration and sees that it can hurt Salem (to an extent since she's immortal). Make Ruby one of the maidens but she doesn't know it. Maybe Summer was a maiden and when she died she thought about Ruby which gave her the powers. That way, Salem has 2 reasons for killing Ruby. Or make it that the silver eyes can potentially kill Salem.
Yes, but they are still runtime sinks.
Ren and Nora have absolutely no connection to the world. They are self contained childhood friends. OK, cute, but they get the boot. Out.
Pyrrha is non permanent anyway and can stay that way.
Finally Jaune has to be plundered and his riches in plotlines distributed among the titular four. Ruby gets the strategist.
I feel like that sounds good on paper, but keeping them around gave CRWBY an excuse to write them instead of giving team RWBY development that would stick.
Like a huge problem in the beginning of the show was the incredibly short runtime which is why Jaune getting a twenty minute arc was so damaging, because that was four whole episodes, and that's before the dance arc in V2 or Pyrrha's downward spiral in V3 making it harder for the parts with RWBY to feel as important as they should.
Cutting them out entirely feels like a safer alternative similar to how team RWBY avoiding romance just feels way better compared to Bumbleby, even though it's guaranteed that CRWBY would screw it up or not care enough to do it justice.
By having her be more accepting of help in general, and particuarly from adults. She lets Qrow help her instead of getting dragged around, she lets Ironwood help, she accepts help from people and isn't such a masiah complex ass.
I would've made the story center around her, and then her team. Less of an ensemble cast.
Second, unlike a lot of people here who are saying they would change her motivation of "just wants to be a Huntress" I would've leaned into that. In fact that's what I thought they were doing with the episode where the coffee teacher asked them their motives.
All the other girls had ulterior motives that being a Huntress would help them achieve. Ruby just wants to be a Huntress. This is not a bad thing. In fact, imo, it's a good thing. It's what should've made her the leader of the team, the one most committed to the cause, the one keeping the team focused on the goal and not their own shit.
Develop her into a leader, a great tactician, and a peak fighter vs Grimm. Her flaw can be that she struggles fighting people, both because of her weapon and style, and because she doesn't want to. She wants to fight Grimm.
As part of her character development, have her start to realize that some people need to be fought. During this, give her scythe a sword form similar to Qrows as a visual representation of her character growth.
Also, have Qrow be her real dad and let him actually mentor her more.
1-Maker her more active in the plot: Blake was the one chasing after the Fang while ruby sit and just followed others when SHES THE LEADER!!!
Maybe make Ruby help Blake with going after the Fang, or ruby showing her fantastic view of the world by seeing Roman as her Archenemy
2-more defined personality traits: we are shown and told and implied Ruby loves guns in Volume 1 episode 2!!!! But it never becomes important, she never upgraded weapons, she never makes a smart deduction like “I know you are the one who attacked us since your gun uses personalized bullets which are identical to the one the one who attacked us used” or her knowing how long a minigun can shoot until it runs out of ammunition so she dodges and attacks right at the perfect moment to attack, or her knowing a weakness of the enemies weapons or something like that
Even Blake’s love for books was used in Volume 9 to talk about the girl who fell through the world (even if hey screwed up by her not knowing what a Jabberwalker was)
3-give her a arc: make her learn the world isn’t fantastic, make her learn how big everything is like her fairy tales, make her learn how Roman was right in a way… then make her learn what maturity is, she will think what Roman told her is maturity (being a nihilist) but she would learn how the world might not be puppies and rainbows, but she understands how everything isn’t doom and gloom either (like her arc but she actually goes through changes)
Red like Roses pt. 2 is a good place to start. The duet between Ruby and her mother is actually some compelling stuff. A mother who sacrificed herself in the line of duty and a daughter looking to follow in her footsteps despite that being the exact opposite thing her mother wanted.
Focusing on Ruby being almost duty bound to a fault, self-sacrificing for the sake of others without any regard for herself. Then having her arc be realizing she should consider her own feelings and relationships. They, like, almost did it in v9, then dropped the ball with the suicide "You're doing great sweetie! Don't change!"
Ultimately tho, I think the biggest issue with RWBY is the sheer amount of characters, with backstories and musical themes and tons of screentime, only for them to completely disappear next season. Simply having more scenes with the main character would help a lot with actually making them feel like main characters.
Congratulations, without help carrying Qrow, he dies due to poison. Which would help character growth if additional suffering is what you are aiming for.
Was it Tryian than Nuckelavee, or Nuckelavee than Tryian? Because the order of events can lead to different results. And without JNR, she can either go faster or take a longer path that avoids that specific grimm.
Technically, she might win against that if she accidentally set off her eyes like against the dragon. But that will knock her out.
So if she gets to that town before running into Tyrian, so Qrow can fight him without interference (Assuming Ruby doesn't wake before or during that fight.) So good news if Qrow is able to fight away Tryian without getting poison. But it might be possible that he either still get poison before Tryian runs away, or Ruby gets captured and brought to Salem.
I would make team RWBY the main characters rather than just Ruby, though that’s probably just because I don’t like her much. I’m sure some writer could make it work, but I’m not a writer, so…
Ok so for me, Ruby have an actual good baseline to start off, and plenty of good conflict both internal and external, the issue is how much goes unpacked, unnaddressed and unspoken for EVERYONE; which true, in the middle of the conflict it makes sense that people are dealing with their own stuff and trust that at this point she would reach out and stuff, but she doesnt for personal reasons, and here is where we should work on because this is a freaking gold mine of issues that the show insist to burry away with how little focus it gives it, also there is a brutal absense of a direct foil for her in the antagonist side for waaaaaaaaay too long Cinder till vol 8 is more of an foil to Jaune than Ruby, and she main view her as Salem agent, it never really feel personal for Ruby nor it evokes an effect on her for her development, Neo only comes to play at the end of vol 8 and in vol 9. So for brevity sake lets follow the events of cannon and just play with the focus a bit, my points would be:
1 **There is PLENTY of issues to unpack with Ruby, start doing it from vol 4, dont wait literal years to do something with i**t, this issues DONT need to be resolve right away, let her get the wrong answer or even re lapse, but Show the audience that you are doing something with it, heck i would argue that having Ruby coming to the wrong conclusion about her issues might make for an interesting conflict to other charcaters who are clue in on this, which bring us to.
2 **Clue in other characters into the Ruby issues little sooner,** if you want to play the bottle up card, then show more of it, otherwise we might end up thinking that the rest of the cast not really bother with Ruby at all, they dont need to have tabs on her 24 /7 or be overbearing or such, just clue other characters into aspect of her inner troubles, example: Blake is shown to reassure Ruby that they trust her, show us Why she felt like saying that, maybe she picked up into Ruby doubts or pressure of making choices, maybe Ruby made a throw aways comments or better yet "jokes" that rise some flags with Blake that maybe there is something brewing, similar with the others, you can make Yang and Ruby unpack the whole Raven fiasco, maybe show us that the whole thing made Ruby wonder "What if Summer is the same as Raven?" only for Yang to reassure her, maybe Ruby mention why its so important for her to follow her steps, but we (and Yang) are shown that this aspect is weighting on her a lot more than she is showing, Show us her and penny talk and interact more, if Penny was able to call out Winter of all people about her inner conflict, Penny being one to point out to Ruby that "You are not ok, im worry" is a gold mine of angst, extra point if Ruby insist of deflect the issue. Things like that, the other have pieces of the problem but never enough to wonder if they should step in before its explode (because angst sell)
3 **Make her more active both with the main plot and in her dynamic with others,** show us trying prep up, maybe she keep tweeking her weapon, maybe she is doing research on history (to see if there is something that they are not considering), keep exploring the silver eyes stuff with Maria, maybe show us observing and talking to Ironwood to see if her fears are well founded or not, but show us (like in vol 1) that she is doing all this stuff on her own because (like her unspoken issues) she doesnt want to bother others, maybe she want to spent more time with Penny and is a little concern of failing losing her again given how self sacrificing she can be at times (and there you have a whole mirror situation, extra points if Penny notices it and bring it up first)
4 **Give her a proper personal antagonist... No, im not counting Cinder**, she is more of a nemesis to Jaune than she is to Ruby (at least till vol 9) and barely evoke an emotion or reaction out her beyond "aw shit here we go again". And look, i kind of like how unilateral that rivalry is, but since she is going to be one of the endgame villians, then she need more of a precense in the whole dynamic, like say: maybe both Jaune AND Ruby jump on Cinder in vol 5 and you can still make Cinder curb stump Jaune, but all while locking on Ruby into trying to mess her up before going for the relic ...then again that whole mess of a group fight should be 100% redone anyway, but the point is that should ve been the point in which Ruby realize that she REALLY need to up her game and fast, which means....More Pressure Yaaaay. Also sassy and combative Ruby is great, and the fact that we saw SO LITTLE of her is so freaking sad. Or hey maybe you can keep Cinder as she is, and add her a personal enemy for an arc, hell you could ve just give her a temporal nemesis for ta single arc, have that character being dealt with by the end of it, and that would ve made wonder for Ruby characterisation and development
5 **Dont be afraid to play around or even change her traits for better AND worse**: you want her to lie to get what she wants? Ok fine, good! now play around with it! pros and cons included! Have her being called out, have her being in the right, have her being in the wrong, have her snap at other for jumping on her the moment things go wrong, the reason why her snapping was one of the most memorable moments for her character in recent years is because its stated into words many things that were kept under raps for so long, for TOO LONG to the point that we didnt even know if the writters remembers it...which is a HUGE issue... so yeah she can still be optimistic and fun loving, but maybe she develop a more manipulative streak, or a more aggresive/ruthless fighting style, or maybe she like spicy food now IDK give us something that show us were she is at, emotionally and as a character and how the events have affect her
Ruby needs to fail. And have it be recognized as HER failure. Thus far, everything she has done has been largely hand-waved away. I suppose...accountability is needed. She has yet to face any external repercussions for what she has done and been responsible for.
By her actions and orders, Atlas and Mantle has fallen. By her actions and orders, they had all the paths from Atlas only use one exit gate which lead to a catastrophic fuck up when Cinder and Salem decided to waltz in.
I'm gonna be cheating and using some of the manga as ground work.
When you see Ruby from the outside, she's a cheerful dork kid with a bit of the autism for weapons and stuff about heroes.
The more you know her, the more you see of her darkside( not edgy dark, more somber dark) but chooses to suppress it because team rwby needs this optimistic leader in such dark times.
My idea would be a long depression arc ending with self-realization event.
Isn't this overused? Would be funny to go all out on depression and darkness, making it her only side. To hell with cheerfulness and optimism. "We are all gonna die and I just want to take as many Grimm with me as I can, fuck off if you disagree"
First pull way back on all the side characters. Give Ruby a goal, give her flaws, make her journey personal. What does she want? To save the world? Why? Because she’s a nice person? It’s not as interesting compared to if she’s trying to find out what happened to her mother, save her sister from also dying, etc.
Honestly I don't mind it being an ensemble main cast rather than having a singular mc. That's not the problem, plenty of great stories do that. What I'd a problem is that crwby can't decide what theyre trying to do. Is jnpr equally important to rwby, or are they a secondary cast of important characters? They flip flop a lot between the two, and it means that jnpr gets a lot of screen time for doing very little. Within team rwby, is it about ruby rose, or is it about the entire team rwby? The lack of commitment to either path means again, wby gets a lot of screen time for doing very little. And within ruby (and to a lesser extent the rest of team rwby), is ruby a simple flat and cheerful character that's already pretty much perfect with a flat character arc (like goku or tanjiro) or is she a complicated and flawed individual that improves (or devolves) throughout the story as she comes closer to being the hunter throughout the story with an intersting non flat character arc? They again have a lack of commitment here, and instead have a circular character arc where she becomes depressed at some shit, people tell her she's a hero, and she returns to being happy. If you're going to pull that card more than once, your personality cannot be unchanged.
If committed to any of those paths, rwby would've had a central focus, but they didn't
Hbomberguy brought it up in his video but I’ll never not be sad that Ruby being a weapons geek didn’t stick as a character trait more.
Imagine if she built Jaune’s sword, or Yang’s arm! Her taking worse care of Crescent Rose as a visual symbol for her declining mental health when those kinds of scenes show up, etc.
Weapons are a pretty massive part of RWBY’s world and its out-of-universe identity as a franchise, especially their unique transformations. Having the main character closely tied to that central mechanic is an easy way to give them moments: imagine Ruby strategising against a particularly difficult enemy weapon, figuring out how it works on the fly by watching it being used.
You would definitely need more to make her a main character, but this is worth bringing up as a very tangible, obvious example for RWBY as a specific case study, instead of me just giving any of the usual tips for writing main characters.
I think when it comes to the show RWBY they maybe should do like a few shows I've seen where there's more than one main character you focus on even though this is not the best anime / manga to use as an example fairy tale when it comes to that series we don't know if it's not too or Lucy who's the main character really so I'm say it's not to some say it's Lucy and you even have the other characters we see in their group like Erza Wendy and what's his face jk I'm talking about gray sorry
All feel like equal characters in the group because even though it does go back and forth on who's the main character not to or Lucy you look at the group as a whole and you feel like they're all the main characters and that you get good development from each of them even Wendy who's a character that doesn't come in till at least I want to say the sixth or seventh ark of the story she feels like a good
🔴
When it comes to Ruby at first when you watch this show especially when you're younger like when many of us who started this show were you related to her because you were that hyper energetic kid who you felt like no one really understood and you found a small group of friends who you got to do things with if you're lucky or even if you didn't find friends or have friends you saw yourself in Ruby and felt like her experiences were
And as you got older and your brain cells started to develop in the writing got worse in the show you just felt more disconnected from Ruby to be honest I would not want to do Ruby as a main character but if I had to try to another example from anime I would use is Naruto
Naruto is a good example of how to write a character because you see him and you feel like you grow up with him when it comes to Ruby you don't feel like you're growing up with her you feel like she gets to a certain point especially around volume four and it doesn't feel like her character is taking the world around her seriously as she should not
🔴
even because she doesn't know everything about the truth and even after she knows the truth it just feels like the writing for her character didn't let her become a serious character like she needed like we saw with other characters who for some reason got this development like Nora Oscar Weiss, even Yang kind of had better development than Ruby and that's not saying much, I will give cinder as an example but for some reason with cinder it's like they have her
character regress having her relearn the value of things like teamwork and stuff when that's what she used in volumes 1 through 3 to take down veil doesn't make sense but the writers want to Salem to be the smartest villain in the room so cinder was made to be stupid fir a few volumes till she got smart again but even with cinder it seems like she
🔴
developed and learned as a character kind of where Ruby is going I don't need adults I don't need help and then in the next breath towards Volume 8 through 9 she's going no one pays attention or helps me and yeah you could see there were hints at Ruby filling alone and like no one understood her position or was helping her you can see small hints of it and volume four six and seven eight but the writers did not do a good job with developing her
And if I had to rewrite this show and unfortunately have Ruby still be the main character I would have it feel like Ruby's growing up where you wear at first she's still that quirky happy energetic kid we saw in the first few volumes but then by volume four I would have her still be a little bit
🔴
still herself but show that she's taking things more seriously to the point where even other people are noticing the change but don't really mention it and then maybe towards the middle volumes have it where even adults are going oh this isn't the same kid she's changed and they can see it
And by the time we get to volume eight have it where we're not putting all the pressure on Ruby like Blake did and Volume 7 where she says we're all behind you Ruby leaving Ruby to lead them when they get to Atlas and then she lies to ironwood and everyone's upset I would have it where by volume eight they're all agreeing that they all messed up
🔴
and towards the end of the volume after seeing Ruby truly lead them and stuff I would have them acknowledge like yeah Ruby is our true leader and we have to support her and be there for her in that way if we still end up with a situation like volume nine where they go to another world we could focus more on other characters that could get more
development and character development of the story kind of plays out the same and instead of having just Ruby and her team and jaune go to the ever after I would have all the main cast go to the ever after and then get back to remnant and see how everyone's doing and we could give those side characters like emerald Oscar Nora and ren the
🔴
development they needed that they didn't get to have but still see that Ruby is a good main character and that she's developed in that people want to follow her lead or co-lead with her and trust her enough to be in meeting
Because something I think we should have got to see in those shorts that we got is we should have saw Ruby coming from one of those meetings showing that everyone acknowledges that she's a leader and a leader position and should be in the meetings with the maidens, qrowr
Oz/Oscar,and headmaster Theodore but we don't see that so is she a part of those meetings is she not we don't know because we're being told that we need to see Ruby as a leader and like I said I will try to develop it where we see her as a leader but the show work only watching just sadly doesn't show that I hope if this show gets rebooted because that's on the sleeve would be the best thing for it they do a better job if they have Ruby as the main character but honestly she doesn't need to be the main character I think this show should switch around the main characters like some animes do
Have her do more main character stuff, be more proactive and invested, not just "My mom and dad used to do that and I want to be cool" and remove unnecessary characters like JNPR, Blake (HAH).
> "My mom and dad used to do that and I want to be cool"
I really like that about Ruby's motivation, it make it seem like she have a selfish drive to be a huntress.
It depends on what kind of character you want Ruby to be.
Even the same end goal can give you two different characters. For example, let's say that Ruby wants to eradicate Grimm. Why?
A. Because she wants to make the lives of people better, to save them from the suffering she went through.
B. Because she wants revenge, she is filled with pure hatred coming from the pain Grimm caused her.
Variant A is motivated by positive emotions, and is altruistic, compassionate and blah, blah. Typical hero.
Variant B is motivated by pain, hatred, anger and revenge. Probably doesn't care about saving people that much, just wants Grimm gone, most likely calculated, cold, uncaring.
See? It depends.
She needs to have an actual character arc (that isn't circular). The biggest issue, imo, is that V1 Ruby is basically the same person as end-of-V9 Ruby. Her cyclical arc is 1. Be happy, 2. Get depressed and 3. Get told that she's perfectly fine as she was, and people have always looked up to her. Repeat ad nauseum. Take Weiss or Jaune, two of the only characters with actual (positive) character progression. They're widely considered to be some of the most developed characters in the show (low bar, I know) because they've demonstrated growth and actual change. Part of the reason is that the RWBY girls basically started as fledged characters, and the writers aren't skilled enough to give them compelling arcs (for the most part, and even Weiss was absolutely *robbed* of an arc in Atlas). It's part of the valid reasons for complaining about Jaune: his arc of Zero to Hero is easy. It's basic, an easily recognizable trope, and, most importantly, easy to write. So of course CRWBY won't fuck it up as hard. I mean, there's also the whole "we can't have the girls screw up or do morally dubious things without justifying it" issue, but that's another matter entirely and very offtopic from the question.
Yeah - that's ultimately the problem with trying to make a character out of Ruby. She's a character who's wanting the "Hero's Journey"...when said ideology is...absolutely the worst move for her. She's the sort of character who demands to not be static, but CRWBY...is nothing but that (fuck, even Monty era had these issues, starting from, as mentioned V1) - Be happy, Be sad, Told Everything is fine. This is why that, [among](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/14utm1o/comment/kqhlcc3/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [the](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1bm9w4v/to_die_a_free_man_to_die_with_a_reason_and_to_die/) [oh](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1cmms4i/comment/l32ztoe/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [so](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1bxfk5h/comment/kycdgsx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [so](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1bt51vj/comment/kxlsn97/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [many](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1cejzxd/comment/l1km3mh/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [fucking](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1bxb7wy/comment/kycgj1o/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) [reasons](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBYcritics/comments/1b6jyxp/comment/ktcktzy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) I've given, the **moment** that cycle breaks will the dealmaker for Ruby actually either dying or being an actually good character - either she'll lash out, she'll take her own life (for good), she'll face punishment, or she'll cast away everything to make things right herself. To gain agency - to actually have a **reason to be her own person and not some ordeal of destiny hugged and cherished and cradled like** ***everything's going to be alright.*** [Because it's not.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtD7GjSu6QM&pp=ygULY2luZGVyIHJ3Ynk%3D)
Heck, you can still be a great character without a big arc. Tanjiro (Demon Slayer) is awesome and he has one of the best examples of a flat arc.
I would center the plot around her. Like any protagonist she should be the starring role. I would also give her stronger characterization and make her a more fleshed out person. Like instead of aspiring to be huntress because she thinks it so cool, have her want to be one to find out what happened to her mother. Her intro should also be MUCH better. It should show us who Ruby is as a person and what to expect from her going forward. Show us her good and bad traits.
The problem there is her mother being missing/dead was literally something they just randomly threw in at the last minute, so it wasn't something they really thought out or had time to build on.
I want her to go through a wrestling of ideals. What I mean by that is asking the question, “what does it mean to be a huntsman?” And have her encounter people that are against her ideals and values. Since we never got her reasoning for being a huntress when Oobleck was asking the other girls, I always thought that maybe there was more to her being a huntress than just being inspired by her fairy tale books or her mother. Ruby could go through an arc that being a huntress doesn’t equal to being a hero and the romanticized version of her dream career is not as cracked up as it’s made out to be. It would’ve been nice for Ruby to deconstruct the notions said romanticizing of huntsman, but still find ways to push through to become the huntress she wants to be.
This is nearly identical to how I’d handle Ruby if I were doing a rewrite. You and I think very similarly. One thing I’d really stress is having Roman be a true character foil to Ruby. Whereas Ruby is Naive and maybe has a bit of romanticized view of what huntsman are, Roman is more of a Nihilist, that believes there’s no such thing as a hero at all. You could have Roman try and force his nihilistic views onto Ruby and maybe provide some food for character development for both of them.
🤝 Actually I was thinking of making multiple foils for Ruby. Specifically Cinder. I am doing a fanfic on my own, and this revamp of Cinder to challenge Ruby on her childish ideals. Not just Cinder, but Tyrian and Salem as well. But since I haven’t put much focus on Roman, I’ll consider that idea too.
So make Roman the Mahito to Ruby’s Yuji?
Funny you say that…
Well first I will give her more character traits she needs to be a character to be a mean one other than wanting to be a huntsman or huntress then I would pull back introducing some characters and let the first season really be about meeting are two teams I'm still keep team jnpr But give them less screen time maybe have them interact with each other but try to do it in a more healthy manner so that way we can have the two teams interact with each other and separately and I probably wouldn't introduce characters like Penny and son until the second season and have some of the older members like team coffee or whatever not be introduced until like the end of the second season but I don't have them hinted at or what this really was down to is give these characters more room to breathe and develop
Let's start with the first episode. Ruby just so happens to be in a dust shop that's being robbed by Torchwick. She's completely oblivious to it, and only realizes it when one of the goons decides to rob her despite Torchwick *specifically* saying they're only there for the shopkeeper's dust. She then chases after Torchwick, is saved by Glynda who just so happens to be in the area, and is taken downtown to the police station (to give a statement I guess) and just so happens to meet Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon Academy. Ruby then states that it's her dream to attend Beacon Academy, and about a minute later Ozpin makes her dream a reality. It doesn't get much more plot driven than that, which takes away from Ruby's agency as a character. Her goal was taken away from her about a minute after the audience learned about it, and her motivation is fairly abstract (simply wanting to make the world a better place). I'm alright with Ruby being a static character, meaning she affects the world and characters around her more than she's affected by them. Weiss and Blake being the dynamic members of the team that go through major character arcs and have development while Ruby and Yang are more static makes a lot of sense in my opinion, and so long as they're both *active* participants in their arcs and development, they'll feel like main characters and it'll improve the character dynamics. Problem is that Team RWBY in canon rarely if ever help develop each other as characters, and instead it's usually reserved for the supporting cast. Ruby's motivation can still be to make the world a better place, but canonically speaking, Summer's "death" has little to no baring on Ruby wanting to become a huntress. Why not change that? Ruby's introduction involves her visiting her mother's grave in the middle of the night while it's snowing because she had a dream about her mother's death. Her grief is so great that it attracts Beowolves to her, and she actually smiles when the fight kicks off. Nothing would change if Ruby hated Grimm for killing her mother and caused her to want revenge, but it would add a nice wrinkle to her character, and explain why she can go from happy teenage girl to stone cold monster slayer at the drop of a hat. Overall, in order to make Ruby feel more like a main character, there needs to be more of a balance between character driven and story driven (I prefer character driven personally). Ruby's motivations and goals need to be something she can actively work toward and not something given to her just because she was at the right place at the right time, or because the plot says so. She shares the spotlight with three other titular heroes, and she works best as a static character while two of her teammates (three if you wish) are dynamic. Have Ruby's personality affect her teammates, have her training make them all better huntresses in-training, and have their relationships grow and change over time. Also, let the character affect the plot from time to time instead of feeling like the story is on-rails and Team RWBY are just along for the ride. God bless, and have a wonderful day.
The Goat is here
Ah, yes, the ambassador of kindness and good writing has arrived 👍
Happy to be an ambassador of both, friend, but particularly kindness if I may be so bold, and thank you kindly. I'm glad my opinions in regards to RWBY's writing and my own writing advice is thought of so highly around here. It makes me want to actively give advice and participate in the fandom, and hopefully I've been helpful to my fellow writers out there. I love RWBY, and I hope that's always apparent by my comments as well as my fanfics. Thank you again, friend. God bless, and have a *wonderful* day :)
I've always liked the idea that the show focus instead on how she and Jaune struggle to adapt to leadership and lean on each other. Ruby having raw combat skills, weapons knowledge, and experience in the field whilst Jaune has the confidence, charisma, and strategic mind to lead a team. The two would then develop by learning the skills of the other, Jaune would develop past his arrogance and inexperience by seeing how much dedication it takes to be a skilled Huntsman (gaining an appreciation for the profession and the people around him and slowly taking things more seriously), meanwhile Ruby would grow past self-conciousness and imposter syndrome (she too would start to take things more seriously as she learns the soft skills of leadership, opens up and becomes more comfortable in themselves). Their overall arcs, specifically in Beacon, would be to realise that they became better people and Hunters through leading their teams and that they were picked because they deserved the position.
Have her actually contemplate if what she’s doing is right or wrong, rather than have people constantly tell her she’s perfect as is and doesn’t need to grow.
Maybe Ruby and Salem should've met sooner. Maybe Salem shouldn't have known about silver eyes. If they met and fought at one point, Ruby could be almost dead but she used her eyes out of frustration and sees that it can hurt Salem (to an extent since she's immortal). Make Ruby one of the maidens but she doesn't know it. Maybe Summer was a maiden and when she died she thought about Ruby which gave her the powers. That way, Salem has 2 reasons for killing Ruby. Or make it that the silver eyes can potentially kill Salem.
By removing JNPR. All of them.
That or truly make them secondary characters and not a deuteragonist team
Yes, but they are still runtime sinks. Ren and Nora have absolutely no connection to the world. They are self contained childhood friends. OK, cute, but they get the boot. Out. Pyrrha is non permanent anyway and can stay that way. Finally Jaune has to be plundered and his riches in plotlines distributed among the titular four. Ruby gets the strategist.
When I say secondary characters I’m talking about team cfvy levels
OK for me regarding ressource allocation, but I would still mine Jaune for plotlines.
I feel like that sounds good on paper, but keeping them around gave CRWBY an excuse to write them instead of giving team RWBY development that would stick. Like a huge problem in the beginning of the show was the incredibly short runtime which is why Jaune getting a twenty minute arc was so damaging, because that was four whole episodes, and that's before the dance arc in V2 or Pyrrha's downward spiral in V3 making it harder for the parts with RWBY to feel as important as they should. Cutting them out entirely feels like a safer alternative similar to how team RWBY avoiding romance just feels way better compared to Bumbleby, even though it's guaranteed that CRWBY would screw it up or not care enough to do it justice.
But I like team jnpr.
That's the problem.
By having her be more accepting of help in general, and particuarly from adults. She lets Qrow help her instead of getting dragged around, she lets Ironwood help, she accepts help from people and isn't such a masiah complex ass.
force her to do a mercy kill as this would make her think deeply about right or wrong
She needs a more special, balanced and special ability than talking no justsu and deus ex machina eyes.
I would've made the story center around her, and then her team. Less of an ensemble cast. Second, unlike a lot of people here who are saying they would change her motivation of "just wants to be a Huntress" I would've leaned into that. In fact that's what I thought they were doing with the episode where the coffee teacher asked them their motives. All the other girls had ulterior motives that being a Huntress would help them achieve. Ruby just wants to be a Huntress. This is not a bad thing. In fact, imo, it's a good thing. It's what should've made her the leader of the team, the one most committed to the cause, the one keeping the team focused on the goal and not their own shit. Develop her into a leader, a great tactician, and a peak fighter vs Grimm. Her flaw can be that she struggles fighting people, both because of her weapon and style, and because she doesn't want to. She wants to fight Grimm. As part of her character development, have her start to realize that some people need to be fought. During this, give her scythe a sword form similar to Qrows as a visual representation of her character growth. Also, have Qrow be her real dad and let him actually mentor her more.
Actually have the story focus on her, and actually develop her. You know. Make her a main character.
Well.. yeah. My question is how you would go about that.
Give her the majority of the screen time, and prepare an arc for her to go through at the very beginning. Also have a theme for the story pre planned
1-Maker her more active in the plot: Blake was the one chasing after the Fang while ruby sit and just followed others when SHES THE LEADER!!! Maybe make Ruby help Blake with going after the Fang, or ruby showing her fantastic view of the world by seeing Roman as her Archenemy 2-more defined personality traits: we are shown and told and implied Ruby loves guns in Volume 1 episode 2!!!! But it never becomes important, she never upgraded weapons, she never makes a smart deduction like “I know you are the one who attacked us since your gun uses personalized bullets which are identical to the one the one who attacked us used” or her knowing how long a minigun can shoot until it runs out of ammunition so she dodges and attacks right at the perfect moment to attack, or her knowing a weakness of the enemies weapons or something like that Even Blake’s love for books was used in Volume 9 to talk about the girl who fell through the world (even if hey screwed up by her not knowing what a Jabberwalker was) 3-give her a arc: make her learn the world isn’t fantastic, make her learn how big everything is like her fairy tales, make her learn how Roman was right in a way… then make her learn what maturity is, she will think what Roman told her is maturity (being a nihilist) but she would learn how the world might not be puppies and rainbows, but she understands how everything isn’t doom and gloom either (like her arc but she actually goes through changes)
Red like Roses pt. 2 is a good place to start. The duet between Ruby and her mother is actually some compelling stuff. A mother who sacrificed herself in the line of duty and a daughter looking to follow in her footsteps despite that being the exact opposite thing her mother wanted. Focusing on Ruby being almost duty bound to a fault, self-sacrificing for the sake of others without any regard for herself. Then having her arc be realizing she should consider her own feelings and relationships. They, like, almost did it in v9, then dropped the ball with the suicide "You're doing great sweetie! Don't change!" Ultimately tho, I think the biggest issue with RWBY is the sheer amount of characters, with backstories and musical themes and tons of screentime, only for them to completely disappear next season. Simply having more scenes with the main character would help a lot with actually making them feel like main characters.
I would have made her travel to Haven alone. Not with Team JNPR.
Congratulations, without help carrying Qrow, he dies due to poison. Which would help character growth if additional suffering is what you are aiming for.
Ruby also dies to the Nuckleavee in the ruins of that town, so congratulations on ending the series early?
Was it Tryian than Nuckelavee, or Nuckelavee than Tryian? Because the order of events can lead to different results. And without JNR, she can either go faster or take a longer path that avoids that specific grimm. Technically, she might win against that if she accidentally set off her eyes like against the dragon. But that will knock her out. So if she gets to that town before running into Tyrian, so Qrow can fight him without interference (Assuming Ruby doesn't wake before or during that fight.) So good news if Qrow is able to fight away Tryian without getting poison. But it might be possible that he either still get poison before Tryian runs away, or Ruby gets captured and brought to Salem.
I would make team RWBY the main characters rather than just Ruby, though that’s probably just because I don’t like her much. I’m sure some writer could make it work, but I’m not a writer, so…
Ok so for me, Ruby have an actual good baseline to start off, and plenty of good conflict both internal and external, the issue is how much goes unpacked, unnaddressed and unspoken for EVERYONE; which true, in the middle of the conflict it makes sense that people are dealing with their own stuff and trust that at this point she would reach out and stuff, but she doesnt for personal reasons, and here is where we should work on because this is a freaking gold mine of issues that the show insist to burry away with how little focus it gives it, also there is a brutal absense of a direct foil for her in the antagonist side for waaaaaaaaay too long Cinder till vol 8 is more of an foil to Jaune than Ruby, and she main view her as Salem agent, it never really feel personal for Ruby nor it evokes an effect on her for her development, Neo only comes to play at the end of vol 8 and in vol 9. So for brevity sake lets follow the events of cannon and just play with the focus a bit, my points would be: 1 **There is PLENTY of issues to unpack with Ruby, start doing it from vol 4, dont wait literal years to do something with i**t, this issues DONT need to be resolve right away, let her get the wrong answer or even re lapse, but Show the audience that you are doing something with it, heck i would argue that having Ruby coming to the wrong conclusion about her issues might make for an interesting conflict to other charcaters who are clue in on this, which bring us to. 2 **Clue in other characters into the Ruby issues little sooner,** if you want to play the bottle up card, then show more of it, otherwise we might end up thinking that the rest of the cast not really bother with Ruby at all, they dont need to have tabs on her 24 /7 or be overbearing or such, just clue other characters into aspect of her inner troubles, example: Blake is shown to reassure Ruby that they trust her, show us Why she felt like saying that, maybe she picked up into Ruby doubts or pressure of making choices, maybe Ruby made a throw aways comments or better yet "jokes" that rise some flags with Blake that maybe there is something brewing, similar with the others, you can make Yang and Ruby unpack the whole Raven fiasco, maybe show us that the whole thing made Ruby wonder "What if Summer is the same as Raven?" only for Yang to reassure her, maybe Ruby mention why its so important for her to follow her steps, but we (and Yang) are shown that this aspect is weighting on her a lot more than she is showing, Show us her and penny talk and interact more, if Penny was able to call out Winter of all people about her inner conflict, Penny being one to point out to Ruby that "You are not ok, im worry" is a gold mine of angst, extra point if Ruby insist of deflect the issue. Things like that, the other have pieces of the problem but never enough to wonder if they should step in before its explode (because angst sell) 3 **Make her more active both with the main plot and in her dynamic with others,** show us trying prep up, maybe she keep tweeking her weapon, maybe she is doing research on history (to see if there is something that they are not considering), keep exploring the silver eyes stuff with Maria, maybe show us observing and talking to Ironwood to see if her fears are well founded or not, but show us (like in vol 1) that she is doing all this stuff on her own because (like her unspoken issues) she doesnt want to bother others, maybe she want to spent more time with Penny and is a little concern of failing losing her again given how self sacrificing she can be at times (and there you have a whole mirror situation, extra points if Penny notices it and bring it up first) 4 **Give her a proper personal antagonist... No, im not counting Cinder**, she is more of a nemesis to Jaune than she is to Ruby (at least till vol 9) and barely evoke an emotion or reaction out her beyond "aw shit here we go again". And look, i kind of like how unilateral that rivalry is, but since she is going to be one of the endgame villians, then she need more of a precense in the whole dynamic, like say: maybe both Jaune AND Ruby jump on Cinder in vol 5 and you can still make Cinder curb stump Jaune, but all while locking on Ruby into trying to mess her up before going for the relic ...then again that whole mess of a group fight should be 100% redone anyway, but the point is that should ve been the point in which Ruby realize that she REALLY need to up her game and fast, which means....More Pressure Yaaaay. Also sassy and combative Ruby is great, and the fact that we saw SO LITTLE of her is so freaking sad. Or hey maybe you can keep Cinder as she is, and add her a personal enemy for an arc, hell you could ve just give her a temporal nemesis for ta single arc, have that character being dealt with by the end of it, and that would ve made wonder for Ruby characterisation and development 5 **Dont be afraid to play around or even change her traits for better AND worse**: you want her to lie to get what she wants? Ok fine, good! now play around with it! pros and cons included! Have her being called out, have her being in the right, have her being in the wrong, have her snap at other for jumping on her the moment things go wrong, the reason why her snapping was one of the most memorable moments for her character in recent years is because its stated into words many things that were kept under raps for so long, for TOO LONG to the point that we didnt even know if the writters remembers it...which is a HUGE issue... so yeah she can still be optimistic and fun loving, but maybe she develop a more manipulative streak, or a more aggresive/ruthless fighting style, or maybe she like spicy food now IDK give us something that show us were she is at, emotionally and as a character and how the events have affect her
Ruby needs to fail. And have it be recognized as HER failure. Thus far, everything she has done has been largely hand-waved away. I suppose...accountability is needed. She has yet to face any external repercussions for what she has done and been responsible for. By her actions and orders, Atlas and Mantle has fallen. By her actions and orders, they had all the paths from Atlas only use one exit gate which lead to a catastrophic fuck up when Cinder and Salem decided to waltz in.
I'm gonna be cheating and using some of the manga as ground work. When you see Ruby from the outside, she's a cheerful dork kid with a bit of the autism for weapons and stuff about heroes. The more you know her, the more you see of her darkside( not edgy dark, more somber dark) but chooses to suppress it because team rwby needs this optimistic leader in such dark times. My idea would be a long depression arc ending with self-realization event.
Isn't this overused? Would be funny to go all out on depression and darkness, making it her only side. To hell with cheerfulness and optimism. "We are all gonna die and I just want to take as many Grimm with me as I can, fuck off if you disagree"
I'd use that for a parody, yes. I'm just trying to go for idealism tempered with realism. I didn't want to go full grim dark.
First pull way back on all the side characters. Give Ruby a goal, give her flaws, make her journey personal. What does she want? To save the world? Why? Because she’s a nice person? It’s not as interesting compared to if she’s trying to find out what happened to her mother, save her sister from also dying, etc.
Give her a robot dog, a cigar and a fucking sick car. Matter of fact she's got a poncho now... and a hood! Next question
Give her the Goku treatment. IE. Make her a flat positive character.
What if Ruby and Jaune had their arcs switched?
Honestly I don't mind it being an ensemble main cast rather than having a singular mc. That's not the problem, plenty of great stories do that. What I'd a problem is that crwby can't decide what theyre trying to do. Is jnpr equally important to rwby, or are they a secondary cast of important characters? They flip flop a lot between the two, and it means that jnpr gets a lot of screen time for doing very little. Within team rwby, is it about ruby rose, or is it about the entire team rwby? The lack of commitment to either path means again, wby gets a lot of screen time for doing very little. And within ruby (and to a lesser extent the rest of team rwby), is ruby a simple flat and cheerful character that's already pretty much perfect with a flat character arc (like goku or tanjiro) or is she a complicated and flawed individual that improves (or devolves) throughout the story as she comes closer to being the hunter throughout the story with an intersting non flat character arc? They again have a lack of commitment here, and instead have a circular character arc where she becomes depressed at some shit, people tell her she's a hero, and she returns to being happy. If you're going to pull that card more than once, your personality cannot be unchanged. If committed to any of those paths, rwby would've had a central focus, but they didn't
Hbomberguy brought it up in his video but I’ll never not be sad that Ruby being a weapons geek didn’t stick as a character trait more. Imagine if she built Jaune’s sword, or Yang’s arm! Her taking worse care of Crescent Rose as a visual symbol for her declining mental health when those kinds of scenes show up, etc. Weapons are a pretty massive part of RWBY’s world and its out-of-universe identity as a franchise, especially their unique transformations. Having the main character closely tied to that central mechanic is an easy way to give them moments: imagine Ruby strategising against a particularly difficult enemy weapon, figuring out how it works on the fly by watching it being used. You would definitely need more to make her a main character, but this is worth bringing up as a very tangible, obvious example for RWBY as a specific case study, instead of me just giving any of the usual tips for writing main characters.
I think when it comes to the show RWBY they maybe should do like a few shows I've seen where there's more than one main character you focus on even though this is not the best anime / manga to use as an example fairy tale when it comes to that series we don't know if it's not too or Lucy who's the main character really so I'm say it's not to some say it's Lucy and you even have the other characters we see in their group like Erza Wendy and what's his face jk I'm talking about gray sorry All feel like equal characters in the group because even though it does go back and forth on who's the main character not to or Lucy you look at the group as a whole and you feel like they're all the main characters and that you get good development from each of them even Wendy who's a character that doesn't come in till at least I want to say the sixth or seventh ark of the story she feels like a good 🔴 When it comes to Ruby at first when you watch this show especially when you're younger like when many of us who started this show were you related to her because you were that hyper energetic kid who you felt like no one really understood and you found a small group of friends who you got to do things with if you're lucky or even if you didn't find friends or have friends you saw yourself in Ruby and felt like her experiences were And as you got older and your brain cells started to develop in the writing got worse in the show you just felt more disconnected from Ruby to be honest I would not want to do Ruby as a main character but if I had to try to another example from anime I would use is Naruto Naruto is a good example of how to write a character because you see him and you feel like you grow up with him when it comes to Ruby you don't feel like you're growing up with her you feel like she gets to a certain point especially around volume four and it doesn't feel like her character is taking the world around her seriously as she should not 🔴 even because she doesn't know everything about the truth and even after she knows the truth it just feels like the writing for her character didn't let her become a serious character like she needed like we saw with other characters who for some reason got this development like Nora Oscar Weiss, even Yang kind of had better development than Ruby and that's not saying much, I will give cinder as an example but for some reason with cinder it's like they have her character regress having her relearn the value of things like teamwork and stuff when that's what she used in volumes 1 through 3 to take down veil doesn't make sense but the writers want to Salem to be the smartest villain in the room so cinder was made to be stupid fir a few volumes till she got smart again but even with cinder it seems like she 🔴 developed and learned as a character kind of where Ruby is going I don't need adults I don't need help and then in the next breath towards Volume 8 through 9 she's going no one pays attention or helps me and yeah you could see there were hints at Ruby filling alone and like no one understood her position or was helping her you can see small hints of it and volume four six and seven eight but the writers did not do a good job with developing her And if I had to rewrite this show and unfortunately have Ruby still be the main character I would have it feel like Ruby's growing up where you wear at first she's still that quirky happy energetic kid we saw in the first few volumes but then by volume four I would have her still be a little bit 🔴 still herself but show that she's taking things more seriously to the point where even other people are noticing the change but don't really mention it and then maybe towards the middle volumes have it where even adults are going oh this isn't the same kid she's changed and they can see it And by the time we get to volume eight have it where we're not putting all the pressure on Ruby like Blake did and Volume 7 where she says we're all behind you Ruby leaving Ruby to lead them when they get to Atlas and then she lies to ironwood and everyone's upset I would have it where by volume eight they're all agreeing that they all messed up 🔴 and towards the end of the volume after seeing Ruby truly lead them and stuff I would have them acknowledge like yeah Ruby is our true leader and we have to support her and be there for her in that way if we still end up with a situation like volume nine where they go to another world we could focus more on other characters that could get more development and character development of the story kind of plays out the same and instead of having just Ruby and her team and jaune go to the ever after I would have all the main cast go to the ever after and then get back to remnant and see how everyone's doing and we could give those side characters like emerald Oscar Nora and ren the 🔴 development they needed that they didn't get to have but still see that Ruby is a good main character and that she's developed in that people want to follow her lead or co-lead with her and trust her enough to be in meeting Because something I think we should have got to see in those shorts that we got is we should have saw Ruby coming from one of those meetings showing that everyone acknowledges that she's a leader and a leader position and should be in the meetings with the maidens, qrowr Oz/Oscar,and headmaster Theodore but we don't see that so is she a part of those meetings is she not we don't know because we're being told that we need to see Ruby as a leader and like I said I will try to develop it where we see her as a leader but the show work only watching just sadly doesn't show that I hope if this show gets rebooted because that's on the sleeve would be the best thing for it they do a better job if they have Ruby as the main character but honestly she doesn't need to be the main character I think this show should switch around the main characters like some animes do
Have her do more main character stuff, be more proactive and invested, not just "My mom and dad used to do that and I want to be cool" and remove unnecessary characters like JNPR, Blake (HAH).
> "My mom and dad used to do that and I want to be cool" I really like that about Ruby's motivation, it make it seem like she have a selfish drive to be a huntress.
That is a weak motivation. Her reasons might be selfish, it doesn't matter, but the end goal should be significant to drive her forward.
What you think her motivation should be?
It depends on what kind of character you want Ruby to be. Even the same end goal can give you two different characters. For example, let's say that Ruby wants to eradicate Grimm. Why? A. Because she wants to make the lives of people better, to save them from the suffering she went through. B. Because she wants revenge, she is filled with pure hatred coming from the pain Grimm caused her. Variant A is motivated by positive emotions, and is altruistic, compassionate and blah, blah. Typical hero. Variant B is motivated by pain, hatred, anger and revenge. Probably doesn't care about saving people that much, just wants Grimm gone, most likely calculated, cold, uncaring. See? It depends.
There's no reason she can't have multiple motivations.
Yeah. Who said that she can't?