Review: RWBY Vol.8 “The Final Word”

Overview

The three fights that were previously set up have finally come into play as Winter stands her ground against the very man who was once a father figure to her, Ironwood. While Qrow Intercepts Harriet’s payload to set off a bomb which is only made worse when Watts behind the scenes sets off the bomb timer with his hacking skills which I didn’t think was possible, but oh well. During the fight with Cinder & Neo at the Black Space hub that’s still transporting people from Atlas to Vacuo, The Battle intensifies where tough decisions and sacrifices are made. And much like what unexpectedly happened to Yang last episode, certain characters start to fall off the golden bridges into nothingness.



It’s here when we reach another major turning point as Jaune is forced to make a tough choice requested by Penny which becomes a massive game-changer for all those involved. Where do I even begin with this? It’s just a polarizing move by the writers themselves to make such an unthinkable choice like this. And I’m left thinking about the implications of how Jaune was doing good mentally these past two volumes and now he has to live with the fact that he played a major role in making a tough choice that may cost him various friendships and even more inner turmoil in later storylines.



As the Portals begin to close, We begin to see the ugly aftermath of Atlas falling. Vine with Qrow’s help makes an unthinkable decision to save Harriet from herself. The Bad guy’s sort-of win with Cinder closing the portals completely off-camera with the Staff of Creation and lying through her teeth to a predictably returned Salem on what really went down the last episode when she used the “last question” from the Relic of Knowledge to be two steps ahead of the heroes just to wreck their shit. With Ironwood defeated and possibly left for dead, the episode ends when the Refugees who made it to Vacuo are now getting help against the oncoming Grimm Attacks, just not the way they envisioned. However, unlike the last volume, we get a post-credits scene with a completely different change of scenery that raises more questions than answers…



Our Take

For the season finale of Vol.8, where do I even begin? What hurts the most is that they have repeated the situation of Volume 3’s finale, but with a larger body count sprinkled with extra angst and drama. I’m devastated because everything the fan community blindly dismissed just fucking happened. This is not me asking to directly jump to the epilogue and have everything resolved, this is me wanting our main character’s feelings to actually matter to the screentime.

Despite the proper character growth we got for Cinder as a character, I hate that Cinder keeps getting away with shit while letting people who are supposed to be her teammates take the fall (literally) for her. I don’t know why people want her to be redeemed. The show keeps trying to build her up as a larger evil than Salem when Cinder is pretty much the Starscream to Salem’s Megatron.

Overall, the fallout of the final battle of volume 8 is arguably even more painful than the actual battle. I also feel so bad for Qrow, he genuinely thinks Ruby died when Atlas fell, and there’s no way he can possibly know that she’s obviously going to come back later. We the audience can safely assume that with the exception of certain characters we’ve actually seen die, we know that everyone who fell is alive, but nobody else knows that. And Winter Schnee is the only one who can tell everyone else what happened.

 That post-credits scene leaves a lot of stories to tell because it ain’t RWBY without our eponymous four title characters right?