(RWBY Is) Experimenting with the Rival Trope (Patreon)

Hello again!

Today we’re breaking the mold on retrospectives and dipping more into theory, as we discuss why I think CRWBY are playing with the traditional rivals trope.

For reference, the rival trope is fairly broad, encompassing antagonists, heroes and rivals.

But in the broad strokes, especially when discussing heroes and villains, it means one heroic character and one villainous character in direct and constant opposition.

Their relationship is heated, usually hateful and narratively important to both side as they clash; sometimes the villain might not take the hero seriously but that alone doesn’t discount the rivalry.

In essence, a rival could be described as a one true foe, as opposed to a one true love.

So what is RWBY doing differently?

Well, being a series that is in of itself riffing on the nature of stories and dabbling in post modernism, its not surprising they’d maybe get a little meta with it.

I think no one embodies this better than Cinder, somehow clearly has a story in her head in which she’s the star and in which she has a destiny, despite Remnant being a very self-deterministic world.

She first perceived Pyrrha as her rival and viewed her defeat of the “False” Fall Maiden, her arcs climax.

Then Ruby cam in and burnt off an arm, an eye and left her in emotional tatters.

The traditional way to play this would be that Pyrrha was the false rival, and Ruby is the true rival/

And despite Cinder’s own views that Ruby never should have been born, she’s very much viewed Ruby as such since her initial defeat.

Ruby however, doesn’t.

Not to say she won’t fight Cinder, but Ruby will fight anyone doing evil, and while there’s concerned for her comrades when Cinder is around, Cinder as a person, as a foe, does not occupy Ruby’s mind.

This is partially reflective of Ruby’s sharp focus, battle is rarely personal to her and it’s not honorable or gloriously; her foes are just a problem to be solved efficiently and with minimal collateral damage.

Narratively, thematically, and in terms of roles to play, the most likely rival for Ruby is Salem herself, at least as things stand.

Or to put it another way, Cinder thinks Ruby is her main rival, but in reality, she picked wrong again

Her most likely rival is JNR, not Jaune alone, but the whole team, all of whom she’s barely aware of but whom actually have the strongest claim to rival-dom with Cinder.

Of course, Emerald throws a crowbar into this and may be folded into the conflict, but that’s for later.

Now I noted that Ruby is Salem’s rival, this is amusing to me, because like her student, Salem has also picked wrong.

She views her foe as Ozpin, and she bases her strategies on and around him, viewing these ‘new people’ as beneath her, only a magical and her cursed counterpart could be the one to defeat her after all.

Meanwhile Ozpin/Oscar’s would most likely be Ironwood, hence Oscar being the one to confront Ironwood and not Ruby.

Of course, Oscar-Ozpin didn’t face Ironwood alone as is customary for many series with rivalries, which is reflective of another spin on the classic trope.

The heroes, usually, avoid playing into the one-on-one duels that their rivals want.

Another series that played with this rather cleverly was Order of the Stick, with an extremely meta arc that riffed on Star Wars a bit.

Culminating in one of the protagonists, but not the main hero, delivery a crushing psychological victory to their evil general father by refusing to play the hero role ascribed to them by the man.

Disregarding him as a main villain and leaving him howling alone in the desert, lost and overwhelmed by how the traditional narratives were overturned.

RWBY itself has shown hints of this but on the villain’s side specifically Tyrian’s, when he played on the idea to Qrow of actually caring about settling some score with him.

And we all know how that turned out.

I have seen theories floating around that his true rivals are Emerald and maybe Mercury and he’s not yet realized it because he perceives them as victims, but I don’t feel it disproves my above point anymore than Jaune trying and failing to fight Cinder does.

Regardless, as matters stand, Tyrian’s the only villain who’s shown the necessary self-awareness to understand the prospect of rivalries and use the trappings of the trope to his advantage in a manner similar to the heroes refusing to fight alone.

In contrast, we have:

Adam, who would pivot between viewing Blake as his rival, or her love interest but was violently vexed by their dismissal and overwhelmed by their combined skill.

Ironwood, who viewed Salem as his rival, while se viewed him as someone to ignore unless Ozpin took over. And was ultimately defeated by a former follower who rejected him having any sway in her fate.

Neo, who allowed herself to be diverted from her focus on Cinder by the prospect of an easier target in Ruby and now driven to the point of self-destruction to glean some catharsis from this quest before she dies.

Cinder who is obsessed with someone who barely pays her any mind and whose narrative arch is not trajectorially aligned with her own.

Salem, who is effectively living in the past and can’t see who her true foe really is.

Amusingly, Watts is probably the only villain who came close to getting the traditional showdown he might have wanted.

Which he lost.

Then when he got his second chance he was used and betrayed by his own allies and left to burn in the fire he helped start.

There’s probably a lot to be said about projecting roles onto others, the importance of team work as opposed to one on one duels that grants the heroes agency where otherwise there’d be none and more.

But mostly, I just think this is kind of neat.

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