What Defines Us - Commentary - Ch. 17-18 (Patreon)

(To our new arrivals, I wanted to say 'Welcome!' but also 'These commentaries contain tons of spoilers - please read after the chapters listed in the title!')

Alright, now that we’ve made it past Chapter 17, I can tell you what I was going to mention in the previous commentary!  As you’ve all seen by now, Chapter 17 is Weiss’ spar with Ruby, and Weiss’ opportunity to prove that Ruby isn’t ready to go out into the forest on a hunt.  (Clearly, Ruby is more than ready to go back into the forest.)

I was going to comment on the two ‘promises’ Yang made.  To Weiss (although it was said rather dismissively), Yang said that if Ruby lost, they wouldn’t go on the hunt.  But Yang then told Ruby that they would go regardless of whether she won or lost.

Obviously, this situation had the potential to play out badly.  If Ruby lost and Yang said they were still going on the hunt, Weiss would...well, she’d flip and it would be a very big deal.  In the previous commentary, I was going to mention that Yang’s little double cross was never addressed in the story, thus accidentally giving away that Ruby was going to win.  

Why am I bringing this up to begin with?  Well, I wanted to explain Yang’s reasons for lying.  I think that Yang would tell Ruby that she could go on the hunt anyway so that she would fight loose and relaxed, not uptight and worried about what losing could take away from her.

Imagine if Yang told Ruby that losing meant she couldn’t go on the hunt - wouldn’t Ruby be super nervous about it then?  It would become a test that she’d have to pass.  I’m sure Ruby could have dealt with the added stress, but maybe Yang didn’t want her to deal with it - maybe Yang wanted her to get to go.

I don’t know if you feel like I sometimes talk very cryptically about the characters (like I just did).  I’m not trying to be cryptic, I actually don’t know what Yang’s real motivations were.  It’s kind of difficult to explain, but I feel like these characters have a life of their own sometimes.  They do things and I wonder why, or what drove their decision.  I understand that I’m the one writing them, but sometimes they feel more alive than that - like they might just walk right off the screen and tell me what they want to do, instead of vice versa.  I’m just their scribe, putting their actions and words down on paper.

This might be one of the coolest things about writing, that I’ve only discovered by writing these particular characters quite frequently and for a long time.  I’m really excited for the day I create my own characters - and hopefully they’ll feel as alive as Team RWBY currently does.

One thing I wanted to point out (because I want you to have more inside knowledge than anyone else!) were Weiss’ feelings when she walked into the house in Chapter 17 and thought about how the rest of her teammates’ lives seemed to only have room for three people.  There are only three coat hooks by the door, and the fourth chair at the dining room table is reserved for mail.

Her teammates aren’t intentionally doing this - that’s probably where the mail has always gone because they didn’t have any other purpose for that space - but Weiss notices these subtleties and it makes her feel like an outsider.

I know I’m telling you to keep a lot of things in mind, but keep this in mind as the story progresses!  Maybe I should make a list or something…

Oh!  Also!  Did you notice Weiss’ slip up in this chapter??  Thankfully, Ruby didn’t.  Here it is:

“I love the combat skirt!” Ruby announced gleefully.

“I’m glad you still do,” Weiss replied with a relieved smile.

Still do, Weiss?  You’re glad Ruby still likes combat skirts?  Obviously, this had no impact on the story whatsoever, but I wanted to point it out.  

I wonder how much of this story actually doesn't impact the plot...probably a lot of it.  Sometimes it feels so pointless to add in pieces like this, but I suppose that’s part of the world-building?

So in this chapter, Weiss tries to talk to Yang again - testing the waters, I would say.  And the waters are still a bit chilly!  Compared to the first attempt though, I hope you felt like Yang was a little more reasonable.  She actually says that she isn’t ready to have that conversation yet, and she actually apologizes that she’s not ready.

The way I considered this story was always that Yang was the one that Weiss hurt the most by leaving.  Ruby doesn’t remember, so she doesn’t even know to be upset about it.  It’s Blake and Yang who had their best friend abandon them - and it was Yang who watched her little sister lose the partner who was supposed to stay with her forever.  This was my motivation for Yang’s still-simmering anger - and I always knew that she would be the hardest one to crack.  

But Yang would do anything for Ruby, so she’s trying to be more reasonable.  I certainly don’t envy her position though.  

Also in this chapter, Thorn is revealed to Weiss in his fully finished form.  (Is Weiss a little jealous that Thorn is a boy?  I think so!)

Admittedly, I know next to nothing about electronics or weaponry of any sort.  So when you read sections of this story where Ruby is talking about wires and transistors and such, I’m completely making everything up.  I have no idea what a transistor is, or how wires can be spliced together to form the proper electric conduit.  

Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this...but I will anyway.  I’m literally just using technical words and putting them together in a way that sounds fancy.  What’s kind of funny is that my beta reader is actually quite skillful in electronics and has been correcting little mistakes, but for the most part it seems like my BS-ing has gone off without a hitch!

In an ideal world, I should educate myself on how all that stuff works...but it’s too late for that now :P  (There might be other topics that I fudge, but I can’t remember them at the moment…)

Ok, secrets have been spilled, so let’s move on to the majority of this chapter - the fight between Ruby and Weiss!

Before the actual fight scene, did you notice that Ruby put her combat outfit on under her regular clothes so she could get ready in a flash?  That’s a callback to Chapter 12, where she wondered if Blake wore her combat gear at all times and that’s why she always beat Ruby getting ready.  Ruby decided to give that strategy a try for herself!

Once everyone is dressed appropriately, they can get to the actual fighting.  Have I mentioned that writing combat is hard for me to do?  If I haven’t...writing combat is hard for me to do!  Finding the right words to describe what I see in my head can be difficult on the best of days, but it’s especially difficult when trying to describe action sequences.  

I hope you were able to follow the action and imagine it in your head alright!  I try to make it vague enough that you can create your own mental image of what’s going on, versus being too descriptive and bogging down the chapter while taking away your own creative license.  Because that’s one of the best parts about reading, isn’t it?  Using your imagination to see what’s happening in the world as you read it.

One thing I really like about this chapter is that it’s the first chance we get to see Ruby fight from someone else’s point of view.  In what few fight scenes we’ve had so far, Ruby is the one describing everything in her own terms.  We never knew what Blake or Yang felt like when fighting against Ruby - until now.

Weiss gives us a glimpse into Ruby’s new style.  I think it’s safe to say that she’s surprised by what she sees.  Ruby considers herself to be kind of good, yet Weiss is struggling from the getgo to keep up.

Weiss also makes note of how far apart they are in terms of conditioning.  I wanted to point out that Weiss hasn’t been doing the best job taking care of herself.  She’s gone into the forest several times on her own, but those trips weren’t regular and weren’t combined with any sort of consistent training in the interim.  Ruby, meanwhile, has been training and conditioning every day - which I think would create a huge divergence in their capabilities.  I imagine it like someone who only plays basketball every other month playing one-on-one against someone who practices every night.  Who would you expect to win that matchup?

At the end of this chapter, we see that Yang follows through (a bit) in her promise to Ruby that she’d be nicer to Weiss - extending the invitation to join them for ice cream.  And then Ruby, who is weirdly smart in her own way, makes Weiss promise to show up for the hunt.

This leads us into the next chapter, which I wish we could have seen from both points of view.  Alas, that wasn’t really an option.  I think we can all imagine the turmoil Weiss went through in forcing herself to get ready for the hunt.  She probably tried to come up with all sorts of ways to get it canceled - maybe sending another team of huntsmen out to finish the mission first?  Having all airship stations closed for the day?  Who knows what thoughts ran through her head.

Ultimately, we see that it was her promise to Ruby that ensured she showed up.  She already feels like she’s broken a promise to Ruby, and she doesn’t want to do that again - even if going on a hunt is the last thing she wants Ruby to do.  From Yang’s comments, we see that she also thought Weiss might not show up.

But she did!  And Ruby’s quite excited about that - and everything, really.

One of the parts I really like about this chapter is how Yang is asking Ruby so many questions about how the mission should go and what they should do.  In a way, Yang’s asking Ruby to take charge, or at the very least, to puzzle through what she would do if she was in charge.  

Obviously, as the team leader, Ruby was once the one in charge.  She probably made all of these decisions without even thinking about them.  I like to think that Yang is, in a way, preparing Ruby to take on that role again.  Ruby will need to make these decisions under pressure - she can’t just defer to Yang for guidance.  This hunt provided a golden opportunity for Yang to put Ruby a little more in the driver’s seat.

The actual research facility isn’t supposed to be anything specific that you should know about.  What I was trying to imply though, through Blake’s confident movements (moving like she knew where she was going), was that the team might have been there before.  Or maybe they hadn’t been there as a team, but Blake and Yang had been there after the team was split apart.  That, or Blake is just really freaking awesome with directions.

This chapter is interesting to me because it feels different from what I typically write.  It definitely stands out in my mind as that chapter versus all the others.  I think this might be because I’m normally writing with a focus on relationships, but most of this scene is based on the hunt - which is kind of suspenseful and adventurous.

Ideally, I would like to write a better mixture of both.  I have more adventurous stories that I’ve thought about and will hopefully get to work on in the future.  We’ll see how that goes!

Blake probably has my favorite line in the entire story in this chapter:

“I could just pull the door off its hinges?” Yang offered, flexing her fingers in preparation.

“Sweetie - as much as I admire your ability to rip apart pieces of metal, sometimes people have already taken that into consideration!”

And how was that safe opened?  I like to think that maybe Weiss freezes the lock and then Blake slips a shadow clone inside right as they break it to prevent whatever safety measures there are from going off.  But I’m sure there are many other ways to break into a safe that I’m not thinking about!

Admittedly, I was really nervous about posting this chapter because it’s not a ‘normal’ chapter for me, and because I took some liberties with Ruby’s semblance.  Semblances weren’t exactly set in stone in the show, so I thought that if Ruby is fast...couldn’t she be so fast that everything else seems to stand still?  I don’t see why not!  But I was really nervous that I would get some serious hate mail for that one little part.  Glad that didn’t happen!

After Ruby goes beast mode on the Grimm, our favorite team gets the heck out of dodge - and I love how Blake tells the pilot to lift off before Yang’s even on board.  She has the utmost confidence in their teamwork and communication.  She knows she can get Gambol to Yang and bring her aboard even as the airship is taking off.  I love that quiet assuredness she has, and I love what it symbolizes for their relationship.

Making it to the end of the chapter, a familiar name pops up again - did you catch it?

Ronnie returns!  From all the way back in Chapter 1 - Ronnie is the name that plays through Weiss’ head when her summons is walking back to her.  In that chapter, remembering the name causes the summons to stumble and disappear - implying that it was a painful memory.

Here, Ruby is searching for a name and - what do you know - Blake happens to suggest the very same name, and Ruby loves it.  Might she have been the one who named Weiss’ summons the first time?  We’ll never know.

Ok, just kidding!  Yes, that’s exactly what I was trying to imply there.  Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, Ruby named Weiss’ soldier Ronnie - and has now renamed him the very same name (thanks to Blake’s subtle Jedi mind tricks).

As we wrap up the chapter and this commentary, we have some exhausted huntresses (plus one exhausted writer) - and they’ve been through so much, they deserve to be exhausted (Can I include myself in that?).  But we get to see how enthralled Ruby is with the experience.  This was everything she’d been training for, and she was successful.  Yet, she’s still concerned about Weiss and Weiss’ preparedness to go on another hunt.

Isn’t that something a true leader would do - care for all of their teammates and make sure everyone was both mentally and physically prepared for the battles to come?  

Maybe Weiss is allowing Ruby to discover this side of herself - the leader within her, who can understand that training and fighting isn’t everything there is to being a huntress.  Any leader needs to be able to deal with the human element - mainly, learning how to get the best out of those around them.  Just like Yang was giving Ruby the opportunity to lead, Weiss is too.

I hope everyone enjoyed these two chapters.  They were combat heavy, but I think they did a lot to move our story forward.  We’ll see what the next ones have in store for us…

Until next time,

Miko