RWBY Volume 9's BIGGEST ISSUE (and how to fix it) 

Hope you enjoyed the video! There were a few exporting errors that I couldn't fix, so I apologise for any oddities that may appear. Aight that's it... subscribe or something...?

We know nothing about Alyx. She was a brat, then met the Herbalist and became eviler. In which she became cruel and then poisoned Jaune. Somehow she convinced Louis and the Cat to go with her, after said poisoning of a member of their party. Then when she got to the tree, she had a change of heart and became good. More offscreen development than Oscar.

Volume 9 had the same issue RWBY has always had as a show. Not enough time to develop the themes and story it wants to express, so instead it gives a rushed summary of events that leaves the audience confused and a general feel of “how did we get here?”

They could have had Summer reading at the beginning of the episodes. Damn it.

I liked the bit with Neo and Roman torchwick. It calls back to what Roman said before he died and its relation of how Rwby's journey has been going ever since.

I feel like to a certain degree, the theme song gave me more information about Alyx than the volume itself did.

Yeah, the fact that we never really get to know what happened in The Girl That Fell Through The World is a problem in the season. The show knows that audiences can see right through it as an interpretation of Alice in Wonderland, but then just writes off Alyx’s story as given knowledge it doesn’t have to explain. The season is trying to adapt Alice in Wonderland, take place after Alice in Wonderland, and have its own in-universe version of Alice in Wonderland all at the same time and it’s never really clear where the degrees of separation are, and you bring that up in the point about Alyx being extremely hard to make a connection with due to her personality being wrapped in this recursive mess.

The tonal whiplash is what got to me... Not 5 minutes after Ruby chugs her tea and slips into whatever tree hole and suddenly everyone's huggin' it out all happy go lucky.... Like dafuq y'all? Your sister and bestie just offed herself (literally, with no guarantee that she'd come back like the afterans do) and y'all are chill with it? Im glad she came back and that Yang at least kinda felt sad for a few seconds but still... Dafuq?

I think the biggest flaw I had with this volume, apart from getting rid of Jaune's armor, advanced age/body, was that it was the shortest volume, with only 10 episodes, when it clearly needed more time, they end one episode with Ruby's emotional breakdown, and then the next episode spends less than five minutes, before taking the rest of the main characters to the tree. Some moments needed more time to breath, to show the audience the inner workings of Ruby's mind as her mental state deteriorates, show the growing divide between Ruby and her friends.

i was really hoping we’d run into at least one other relic here, since we know the vaults lead to another space like this. It would’ve been a great way of revealing where the relic of choice is-perhaps in the tree itself, where Afterans choose who they become.

One thing I'm sure others also wanted was the explanation of how she fell through the world and why Lewis left himself out of his own story.

I think this volume is the best we've had since 3. I just wish we got to see the jabberwalker more. Genuinely the most interesting and cool enemy since... ever. Sadly they made it a lot less threatening after its second appearance

Something I didn't see people mention is what The Tree said to ruby and the gang at the end it sums down to basically the fantasy world is the base reality that their reality stems from The Tree basically told them that their world is nothing but a sandbox that The Brothers created to wage their war in did anybody else get that or was I thinking too far into it

Yeah i wasn't at all satisfied with this. Weiss had nothing to do the whole arc, Yang/Blake became one entity thinking of nothing but feelings towards each other (some might say this has been the case since Volume 7, hehe), Ruby's breakdown started promising but ended fast and IMHO in an un-satisfying way ("You are enough" and "Your mom was flawed too" hardly seem like the advices she needed after such tremendous losses) Final battle was meh too, angry Jaune got one-punched by the Cat so RWBY could take him down, because they're a team again now (last time they fought as a team they got their asses kicked, didn't go adressed here btw). In my version i'd pair up Ruby and Jaune to fight the Cat together, two leaders of their respective teams, who at their lowest point were tormented but picked themselves up with the help of another. I just think it sound much more cooler then having a good looking 15 seconds of Ruby slashing the Cat that transfroms into Power Rangers (seriously, there hasn't been a single good fight scene this season, how did this even happen?) I could go on and on. The potential of this Volume for character development was enourmous but the execution didn't live up to the expectations, big sadge. The music was a banger tho, both vocal and instrumental OST's, eager for the full versions P.s Make a video about what you liked! I hereby donate my like

I like the idea of telling bits of the story at the start of each episode Could have been done in a similar way of the messages between the chairman and the director at the start of each episode of rvb season 6

I really fucking wish jaune hadn't lost his drip. De age him, I guess, that's... ok. Whatever. If they had to. Clean up his armor and fix his sword? Hell yeah, why not, give him nice things? But take the man's hair? Downgrade the man's full plate? Take the man's VOICE?? Criminal. That new look was symbolic of his progress. They'd better not take away his stone cold skills too.

As flawed as this volume is, Its weirdly enough one of my favorite so far. That and I thought the Curious Cat was actually a pretty cool antagonist. I kinda wish It'd escaped and fled to Remnant, would've made a nice unknown variable and wildcard to toss into the mix, that and its battle form was pretty cool. Also good seeing Torchwick again, even if he was just a fake (Fakewick?)

I won't say it was a filler arc since those are usually meaningless and don't add anything to the main story. I would say your right on the pacing, story structure, story itself it could of been different and they could of released a the story has a neat little thing because the reason began but that's that.

Jaune and Neo had no reason to be in this volume in my opinion, yeah Jaune has the whole thing about Penny to get over but he doesn’t even talk about it with the other characters, Weiss is the only one that knows (seemingly unless they talked about it off screen, which doesn’t even work as I’m pretty sure Miles and Kerry operate under the belief of if “it didn’t happen on screen it didn’t happen”). Jaune feels really crowbarred in, they even had to contrive an in universe reason for him being here in the form of the “Rusted Knight”. Neo is barley in the Volume and only succeeds with her revenge fantasy because Ruby stupidly wanders into her illusion. Also apparently she has no reason to return to Remnant despite the fact Cinder is very much still alive. Ruby’s whole arc only comes by way of all the characters acting like assholes, it’s like what happened with the CW version of Savitar from The Flash. It’s to early to say but I really doubt the lore dump they got about the Brothers will have any bearing on the plot, it feels like lore for the sake of lore. Blake and Yang are separated from the plot by time and space so they can suck face and nothing of value is lost, sadly showing how irrelevant they are as characters. I don’t care about Alyx or Luis as characters (Luis especially as he’s a nothing character), and Alyx from a manipulative overall scummy character to just arbitrarily having a change of heart at the last second (which leads to her getting killed by the cat)

I hate that RWBY could be good but the writers are holding it back from what it could be. Volume 9 is just barely not considered filler but everything was extremely rushed at the end.

I felt like I was gaslit into thinking that they MUST'VE mentioned the girl who fell through the world before. Surely they had to, I knew Rwby was badly written but surely they wouldn't do that right?

Mid is amazing when you’re referring to rwby.

my favourite character was the bird that died, he was so cool/

Quite honestly, my biggest issue with this volume was the pacing and sequencing. Not that the other volumes pursued these perfectly either, but in this case so many events seemed to occur just for the sake of the plot and no significant moments were really given time to _feel_ significant. For instance, when they revealed the Rusted Knight to be their old friend Jaune, now a lot older and more solemn, within the first few seconds of the next episode Weiss _had_ to give a flirty pickup line. Ruby had an entire sequence of emotional reactions to hearing of Penny's death (she fainted upon just hearing the news and then later gave a speech to the guards about the importance of her blade) and this was not discussed whatsoever. The volume plays out under the idea that there is no time to address Ruby's concerns, but realistically they could have discussed any of this during their long treks across the Ever After. When Ruby literally _died_ (as far as they know), they all moved on without much grieving or reaction whatsoever other than the initial shock and disbelief (I even recall Yang being frustrated that "we never asked her to be perfect," which completely misses the reasons Ruby left the group in the first place). A little sister, the team leader, the cheery, most outgoing of the group, given no real respect or consideration after her disappearance, even after she had a breakdown talking about how little respect she was given. And it never feels resolved, as, though she accepts herself as she is and there is a nice message there, she still is not shown much appreciation or given so much as an apology for how narrow-minded the group had been up until then. It's almost as if everyone forgets the huge plot point that had been building up for the entire season, and they continue to rely on Ruby for most of their questions anyway. It's as if nothing had changed. The immersion is just really off for this season. The way the characters react and interact _feels_ scripted and exaggerated, and when emotional or extremely serious moments occur, it feels like whiplash in the most poorly scripted way. It's as if the writers had attempted to appeal to specific emotions or feelings, but they skipped out on making everything coherent and sensible. So many events could have been avoided and subverted by simply better writing, and it could have made for many more interesting scenes.

Something i hated alot about vol 9, other than theres a chance we wont get a 10, is that Jaune had a massive opporitunity for character development, especially after the time skip he had. He had an opporitunity to grow as a huntsman and as a character. Vine in vol 7 once suggested he tried extending his aura. Imagine Jaune able to power up multiple people at once, or learning how to make himself a powerhouse because his semblance has massive potential. He had this opporitunity to learn more about himself as well. Instead they used none of that carefully placed foreshadowing and made him clinically insane, effectively devolving the character into a jaded war veteran with more spite and PTSD, then put him back to square one as if none of that mattered either. Okay so he gets back into Remnant and what... Cries as he hugs his team he missed... then nothing else?

I can see your point but I don't think it quite works. The big issue with this is that Ruby is supposed to be alone in her suffering, isolated in her pain which feeds into the building pressure she has going on. I get that everyone working on their own issues would theoretically achieve the same end but an audience member's own perception will be colored by these additions, making Ruby's outburst seem petty and childish because we can clearly see them also trying to deal with the fall of Atlas. Not to mention that Ruby has been shown to care about other people's problems more than her own, like trying to apologize to Jaune for 'dragging' them to Mistral or comforting Penny when James calls them despite clearly being affected herself. As we have it now- We can see why Ruby feels the way she does while also understanding that Ruby is causing the problem as well by refusing to...lower her guard, one could say. It's also why certain moments, like the guard's comical sobbing at what is effectively Ruby's eulogy for Penny, work: because it reinforces this feeling of isolation. All culminating in her being alone with the Blacksmith, who simply tells her that only she can decide. It also fits with Jaune's own story as well- isolated and alone, losing sight of who he is and carrying a burden that really, he should know better than to do so by now. I feel like this would require more time to get the same feeling of isolation that we have currently...time we can't be certain they had. And given RT's bullshit- I'm not exactly up for demanding MORE work from the animators. Tempting fate and all that. Though I do have to say- Your point about Alyx I do agree with. And your suggestion is more than what the big names like Vexed can say they have. So I think you should be proud of that.

How to fix RWBY: Reboot it from the ground up, remove Miles and Kerry from production, and hire better writers and showrunners who know what they're doing and actually care about the show.

Actually Oscar/ozpin make a reference to the girl who fell through the world in volume 8 it was brief

this season couldve been more, but it suffered the fact it was only 10 episodes long, which is the shortest season to date

There was little to nothing to connect it to the overarching story of the last 8 volumes. Entirety can be summed up like this. Ruby was sad, and experienced self doubt. She got better. Neo is staying behind. Nothing else happened, in the entire volume. Well, maybe there was a small lore drop that might connect to how they can fix Salem with a magic tree.

it felt more like a draft than an actual final output.

You basically summed up the general problem I had with this volume so I appreciate that. Enjoyed the vid, keep it up👍

I'm just waiting for the commentary for this volume mention stuff that happened during the volume but was never actually shown in the show yet they act like it did.

Vol 9 was so completely pointless. The only way thos volume will have any point to the main story is if they dump Salem on the Tree and have her either be stuck there permanently or have her 'ascend' and be redeemed or whatever. I find myself not really caring about the fate of this Remnant and these characters anymore.

dont know why none asked the tree how to deal with Salem the tree made the brothers a brother indirectly made salem. Tree should be more powerful then salem and be able to provide a solution on killing or rendering mortal.

This volume was by far my favorite of the whole series, not since Volume 5. The Curious Cat was by far my favorite villain of the entire series without a doubt, whether you prefer twist villains or not is entirely up to you and I especially love the opening the most. Now I will admit the show has of course many problems which is understandable but I did enjoy it the Volume nonetheless, and this is coming from someone who had low expectations but watched the opening and loved it, so all in all, I loved Volume 9

I think my biggest two gripes with the season are how Jaune and Ruby's depression just magically go away so quickly. In my opinion, the season was rushed as they were probably planning on making Jaune have a moment with Weiss after his outburst at Ruby given she's the one person he actually saved, which would help him understand that, although he can't save everyone, he did his best and did save her. Another thing was that we never saw Jaune tell the others that he killed Penny and we never got to see him forgiven for that since he had no choice and Weiss once again would have been the only one to see it and understand his actions. For Ruby her thing was just way too quick, yes maybe the tree gives someone more clarity, but she went from depressed in the tree to "LETS FIGHT IM BACK TO 100%" in maybe the span of 5 minutes. I think the season was easily rushed and was probably going to be a 12-15 episode season which would've gone in more depths with both team leaders, but unfortunately they got rushed.

I think they should had made some prequel episodes dedicated to Alix. I mean, She appeared in many parts, even intro.

Personally I think the biggest problem is that Ruby's "Character Development"... isn't. She doesn't change. She doesn't learn anything new about herself. She doesn't address the fact that her real weakness is the fact that her behavior and heroism is based on a generic notion of doing good and not an actual philosophical ideal, which opens her up to hypocritical actions. A la v7/v8. No, we go through the whole "character development volume" just to have the character remain stagnant.

I mean I kinda would have liked to see an anti-hero Jaune, a man who finally broke and made a pact with the jabberwalker. He would have polarized color armor, helmet, and his sheath and origional sword would be incased in a dark crystal material. Have it where he is improved in terms of strength and skill, though not lethal to RWBY as he serves the jabberwalker. The audience wouldn't know that the main antagonist would be jaune until the very end where he "stalks" RWBY through the door out.

When I saw Ruby join the tree I kind of wanted her to actually have a change. An idea that popped into my head was have her abandon the role of a hero and take on the title of villain. Or more accurately a villain that destroys the Grim of Remnant (Both literally and metaphorically). She would hunt down Salem's enemies one by one as an older version of herself and maybe even be given the Destroyer's mark which could theoretically put an end to her main enemy. The catch is that even if it prevents Salem from returning, the actual curse of immortality does not subside and instead latches on to the one that destroyed the original. Season 10 could have been about trying to bring Ruby back from her new persona of Reaper before she does that act.

It probably wouldn't have been as cool if team RWBY wound up in the backrooms

Part of the reason Volume 9 turned out like this was because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This season was postponed two or three times. Production began in 2020 and due to the pandemic, they decided to release it in 2021. But then it got delayed to 2022 due COVID-19 still happening. And then it was postponed again because of the COVID-19 "Delta Variant". Until finally, in 2023, it got released at last. During this chaos, RT's staff and employees were forced to work on V9 from the safety of their homes. And that's not easy as you might think. Plus, the season's script suffered numerous rewrites, so many scenes and plot points had to be either removed or altered. It felt rushed and had many plot holes because it was supposed to be twelve episodes long until it got trimmed down to ten. Summer was supposed to get more screen time here, too. And another thing, several of RT's employees were getting fired for reasons such as budget cuts, sexual misconduct and, in the case of Glynda's original VA, drunkenly insulting their coworkers on Facebook. Let's not forget that, during this time, RT was also working on RWBY tie-in material such as Roman Holiday, Ice Queendom, Fairy-tales of Remnant, Arrowfell and the Justice League crossover comics and movies. In short, RWBY Volume 9 was a production nightmare. I consider it the "Duke Nukem Forever" of RWBY. However, in my opinion, both this along with Arrowfell and Ice Queendom really saved the show for me. Sure, it ain't perfect. But it is waaaaay better than V8 by a long shot. The heroes really needed a W.

I love videos that are titled "and how to fix it" as if the volume wasn't out already

Now I treat all the RWBY series like any comic book owned by a big company, it has brilliant moments but overall it's a trainwreck.

I’m just glad they didn’t kill off Neo. Although I wanted her to be reformed, the ambiguity is enough for me.

Regarding the origin of the brothers have you thought about the following possibility? Jinn's knowledge might not be absolute as she might be limited by the knowledge granted to her by the brothers, and as Salem demonstrated in the old world, the gods are not perfect. Thus, Jinn cannot know that Salem can be destroyed since the brothers said she can't. I agree that this volume is not standard RWBY (at least is not as awful as volume 5). However, I find similarities between 9 and 6 where we are presented with new pieces of information that we are yet unaware of how they fit in (thinking of the question Ruby asked to Jinn). I actually liked volume 9.

I’m not sure if it’s funny or sad that homophobic Ruby did more to advertise the series than anything rooster teeth has done in the past 6 years

While I was watching this volume, I thought them being stuck in the otherworld would only last a few episodes, but no, it just kept going and going in circles and just became about them dealing with hitting a milestone and their personal failures. It hardly advanced the story and felt more like a giant filler arc. In my opinion, this story arc should've just been made into a manga or a book instead of being a full volume.

knowing rooster teeth their only good at is introducing new characters we dont know of and used as a plot device (oscar and alyx) and EXPECTED us to make them feel relatable. Plus they ALWAYS tell and no show to tell a story. how dull of them.

There where a bunch of things esle that were really dumb in this volume but I can say this volume will hopefully be a very tiny miniature baby step into the right direction. Vexed viewer has some really good opinions on it. Also what are those osts you used in this video?

If Monty Oum was still alive, I genuinely think we would have had a much stronger writing than the lackluster writing team that RWBY has now.

The biggest problem is that they de dilfed jaun

the whole Jaune-thrown-back-in-time thing does NOT make sense. Why wouldn’t he think to go back to Remnant and warn Ozpin of things to come? Why wouldn’t he try to save Pyrrha??! Instead he just . . . waits for team RWBY to show up? Even though they’re perfectly capable? Why not try to stop his younger self from touching the weird time tree? Instead the writers traumatize the boy further, keeping him utterly alone for decades right after doing the worst thing he’s ever done-not for character development, not even for narrative-but just because it’s “different”

>The ever after will have very little relevance >literally the brother gods

Wait so exactly what is the story of The Girl Who Fell through the world cuz like I don't know cuz she'll never gives us a good explanation

Can't we just make it the slice of life jaune show where nothing bad happened to our precious dork

Why are random people on RU-vid better writers than the people paid by a company? XD

By the way, will Alyx's brother, who escaped, have any plot significance?

I was going to watch it but it wasn’t appearing for me idk why

Issues, yes. Still having fun though.

Hard agree fax 100

s1-s3 was definitely setting up to tell a story and the stories within the main story long term, but now its like roosterteeth let's a story end within its season, leaving it half developed ( if it even makes it to the half mark ) and then they throw it away and forget about it for newer seasons 😅

Not have the self-insert in it, for starters

It's like playing Assassin's Creed, the story keeps going on and on and on and on and on and so on. I like long story but just like Assassin's Creed this story has gone on way way way too long and even more like Assassin's Creed the story will never end at some point it gets boring just like Assassin's Creed

THEY SHOULD HAD KEPT JAUNE A BIT DIFFERENT THAN ADDING SOME GREY HAIRS I MEAN WHAT THE FUCK CRWBY!?!

Yeah I am sorry, I can't really accept your critique. I am going to be honest I don't like Rwby as a series but this entire season was a breath of fresh air compared to what we are used to. You are demanding more character development at a point where most of the characters in question have finished their character arcs for the most part. That was pretty much displayed on how every character could move on from past failures besides Rwby. You suggested learning to trust eachother when they are at the point of being beyond trust and are as close to eachother as family. Rwby of course was the most in need of development here because she has always been the anchor for other characters in prior arcs and has finally broken from being strong for too long, so you might say she would need these lessons more than her team does. Also I do not think Alex's story needed to be anything more than a plot device, because if we knew the story its likely the season would have become predictable and that would be rather bad considering how most of the prior seasons have been a bit predictable. Its better to have been vague at least so we could have the story drive us to the next destination and the next one without tipping its hand too much. Which is exactly the issue prior arcs had, they have always had conclusions that have been predetermined because they weren't subtle with foreshadowing or trying to at least change the narrative.

Are you going to watch justice league x rwby part 1

Looking back in hindsight, I can't help but agree with your assessment of Rwby volume 9. It was a better volume than most but there were some very head scratching

RWBY is never going to be good again. I’ve been waiting since volume 3 and it’s only gotten worse and worse since.

Volume 9 is a glorified filler arc. Nothing changed and we didn’t learn anything new that shouldn’t have been established much earlier. Or that you couldn’t guess

It's not a filler arc. For christ sake, why cant anyone use terms right? The world of Ever After might be disconnected, but the events the characters went through will carry through with them

Yes, this is bad writing. The main characters should not have more information than the audience. The audience is the only character in the dark about everything. It becomes very frustrating to watch.

clussy

this whole volume felt like filler to me you can genuinely skip most of this and the only things you would miss is bmblb jaune being old and porbably crazy ruby snapping and her basically dying which doesnt even matter because she just comes back and the only thing that would really change if you skip this volume is neo being gone which who knows knowing rt they will probably bring her back next volume

This whole video and comment section scream that y'all didn't understand the season. Would I have liked more from it? Yes. I would like more from every piece of content I enjoy. But Ruby and Juane were meant to be parallels to Alyx and Lewis. Ruby and Alyx had opposite stories. One entered the world so disillusioned with herself with the intent to make the world a better place, and fell further and further into despair, that she chose to leave the world permanently and she eventually realized that she could be enough the whole time. Juane entered the Ever After as someone who still had imposter syndrome. He learned through his journey with Alyx that he had a role to play and he knew that role because he had read the Remnant version of that story. When he was poisoned, he felt all the regret of failing to save the people he promised to all over again, but Alyx never came back in his eyes, so he viewed her as another Pyrrha. He viewed the paper stars the same way and that's why he only accepted the idea of reincarnation as a positive thing once they were reintroduced as the crystal people. The results ended as positively as the animation did for all characters, but the journey was different.

That's.....not how a filler arc operates. Filler arcs have no lasting impact on the character arcs at large. This volume did. A LOT. It just sounds to me like you missed a lot of what the volume did because of said personal stuff impacting your thinking.

The biggest problem is that they changed and altered both Yang and Blake’s characters to their liking 😒

I hate this show with a fucking passion. After monty died i tried i did. But after volume 5 i just couldnt force myself to continue watching

They never should've made Bumbleby happen at all!!! It just ruined both Yang and Blake as character! Thanks for making two great waifus hateable, Rooster Teeth and CRWBY. You have destroyed my respect for both of ya.

This season definitely felt rushed, and more importantly they neglected to mention two very important things. 1 alot more people than Alex, and Louis fell, and 2 MOTHERFUCKING TIME TRAVEL!!!!!! It would have felt a bit like a cop out, but they could have fixed EVERYTHING if they used the clock tree that Juane found. Even if the writes don't want to go that direction, it still to big a thing to not mention more than once. I blame the DC collab for season 9

Part of the reason Volume 9 turned out like this was because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This season was postponed two or three times. Production began in 2020 and due to the pandemic, they decided to release it in 2021. But then it got delayed to 2022 due COVID-19 still happening. And then it was postponed again because of the COVID-19 "Delta Variant". Until finally, in 2023, it got released at last. During this chaos, RT's staff and employees were forced to work on V9 from the safety of their homes. And that's not easy as you might think. Plus, the season's script suffered numerous rewrites, so many scenes and plot points had to be either removed or altered. It felt rushed and had many plot holes because it was supposed to be twelve episodes long until it got trimmed down to ten. Summer was supposed to get more screen time here, too. And another thing, several of RT's employees were getting fired for reasons such as budget cuts, sexual misconduct and, in the case of Glynda's original VA, drunkenly insulting their coworkers on Facebook. Let's not forget that, during this time, RT was also working on RWBY tie-in material such as Roman Holiday, Ice Queendom, Fairy-tales of Remnant, Arrowfell and the Justice League crossover comics and movies. In short, RWBY Volume 9 was a production nightmare. I consider it the "Duke Nukem Forever" of RWBY. However, in my opinion, both this and Ice Queendom saved the show for me. Sure, it ain't perfect. But it is waaaaay better than V8 by a long shot. The heroes really needed a W.