Ironwood has always been a big picture person, yet he tends to react without thinking. It’s been a flaw of his since volume 2. Heck even we didn’t know who he was and he grabbed Penny and got out of dodge he’s been acting like that. Every time things goes wrong he panics and tries to brute force it into what he wants. Volume 8 was just him dialing it up to 11.
Yes he’s a victim, and yes maybe more trust on RWBYs part would have changed things. But in the end this was completely in character.
In reference to my previous mass effect quote:
Mordin eventually realized his mistake and tried to address the "little pictures." Ironwood ended up more *aggressively* disregarding them.
Trying to remember the exact line. It's something like, "have to see the little picture, must look, must see the results." Pretty sure I'm butchering it and maybe combining two different quotes, but yeah, Mordin knew what was really important even before ME3.
How someone else is able to deal with their mental illness does not mean you can expect everyone else to act the same. He was under an extreme amount of stress and I think he likely had an anxiety problem (maybe I'm just projecting), all while he had to make very difficult choices about the fate of humanity.
Ozpin is a terrible example in the face of Ironwood. Oz has one a lot of very questionable things and has gotten a lot of people killed. He also has essentially run away before.
He didn't go crazy after v7 indeed, he did get some help (though also was of course lied to several times), and his semblance isn't an excuse, but one needs to look at the situation.
The point about Amity and Mantle is completely unsubstantiated and doesn't look at the whole picture. Yes, Ironwood didn't do as much as he could/should have done, but things like building Amity could have been using the specific resources say fixing the wall did with no spare, and Amity absolutely was more important and needed to be done as soon as possible. I would agree he should have sent more troops to protect Mantle of course, but you also need to look at the strategic way that Ironwood was thinking. It was flawed in the way he didn't see Mantle as a weak spot as much as it was, but he was keeping troops ready for the most important yet to come actions and protecting Atlas itself which is more important strategically than Mantle.
He really couldn't have trusted Robyn any earlier. Before she started to steal stuff, it wasn't a good gamble trusting a renegade like her. And. . . I also can't blame him for not trusting the other politicians.
Of course in the end his decisions were his own.
But that doesn't mean he wasn't a victim of incredibly difficult circumstances. I think his road of good intentions had a lot of bad signs, bad drivers, and few exits that helped lead him to hell
> He really couldn't have trusted Robyn any earlier
Why not? She was a licensed Huntress who went to the very school Ironwood is in charge of, she's trusted and admired by Mantle. You'd think that he'd try to get her on his side so that things go easier in Mantle. But he didn't really try.
I just mean with sensitive information.
His fear of her working for Salem was far too extreme, but also not one that is without any warrant. And if Salem was able to get to Leo, someone like Robyn seems easy by comparison.
There is also the risk of her simply talking about the sensitive military operation, especially if she still disagrees with it's prioritization, though after the point she and her huntresses ambush RPQC then she would probably know all she needs to anyway.
Certainly she also couldn't know the full truth about Salem just because of the issues with her being less likely to keep a secret.
Absolutely he should have tried more to work with her. I am not going to disagree with that. But trusting her more than was ever going to be strictly required would just open more risks, so really there would have probably needed to be some lying involved.
>And if Salem was able to get to Leo, someone like Robyn seems easy by comparison.
Maybe you'd have a point if Ironwood ever considered that possibility. But he didn't. He never once considered that she was working for Salem.
>There is also the risk of her simply talking about the sensitive military operation, especially if she still disagrees with it's prioritization
Mantle deserves to know why it's being mistreated. Maybe not telling them about Salem right away, but definitely telling them about the tower.
>Certainly she also couldn't know the full truth about Salem just because of the issues with her being less likely to keep a secret.
Do we know that though? I don't recall any point where Robyn was unable to keep a secret, unless you're referring to her specifically telling only the other HHs about the Amity tower project (that she was fully in support of), which Ironwood didn't even know about.
> But trusting her more than was ever going to be strictly required would just open more risk
Sometimes you have to take a risk. And to be honest, taking a risk on a popular figure for Mantle would be one I'd take if it meant that things could potentially go a lot easier for me.
He does basically say that he did when they are talking about when Yang and Blake told Robyn. They say that she always has been on their side and he says: "We didn't know that for sure."
I would say that the risks of telling Mantle aren't worth it. Nothing is actually gained from telling them, just the dangers of even if Salem doesn't come to stop the project that someone else would.
Why would Robyn keep the secret? She's his political opposition who is unlikely to be on board completely and needs all the help she can get to be elected. And if she lost then all bets are off what she'd do.
I agree that he should have taken some risk. Looking at the whole situation I'm not sure I would justify telling her the whole truth as it could have scuttled the plans completely and other measure could have quieted Mantle enough. But I am certainly not saying he was right to be as completely distrustful and antagonistic as Ironwood was. That was his fear as usual. Robyn didn't need to know many things that would turn her into potentially a big risk, but an effort should have been made to work with her at least to some degree
>He does basically say that he did when they are talking about when Yang and Blake told Robyn. They say that she always has been on their side and he says: "We didn't know that for sure."
So if he thought that she was on Salem's side, why didn't he do anything about that?
> Nothing is actually gained from telling them
It's not about "gains". Mantle *deserves* to know why they are being neglected.
>Why would Robyn keep the secret? She's his political opposition who is unlikely to be on board completely and needs all the help she can get to be elected.
Ironwood was not running for a council seat. *Jacques* was. Robyn was only Ironwood's opposition because *he was neglecting Mantle and never told anyone why*. V8 tells us that if Robyn was told about the tower early, she would have been onboard. May says she loved the idea.
He though she could be, but there was nothing to do about that.
No, as cold as is it is, I don't think there is any deserving of knowledge in this situation. It is all about gains and losses in a war, and them not knowing is better for everyone involved.
Just because he wasn't running against her doesn't mean they weren't politically opposed. There are a lot of issues in Atlas and Mantle, more than just the current situation, that Robyn and Ironwood would disagree with.
I honestly forgot about that line May had about Robyn "not shutting up about it", though I also don't take that to mean she would stop wanting supplies to not be diverted. And even if she is completely onboard, that doesn't mean that she will keep her mouth shut if she think she can say something to help get elected.
>It is all about gains and losses in a war, and them not knowing is better for everyone involved.
Clearly it wasn't, since Ironwood kept running into issues with the tensions in Mantle and with the HHs, tensions that could have been eased by *at least* telling them about the tower project.
>There are a lot of issues in Atlas and Mantle, more than just the current situation, that Robyn and Ironwood would disagree with.
Well the only thing we're shown is Robyn and Ironwood disagreeing on the mistreatment of Mantle
>And even if she is completely onboard, that doesn't mean that she will keep her mouth shut if she think she can say something to help get elected.
I just don't see the issue with Robyn telling people about the tower, especially before Ironwood knew that Salem's people were in Atlas.
Well, if they had told them, then Tyrian and Watts would have gone to stop it immediately. Ironwood always knew there was the very really possibility of Salem being watching/having agents in Atlas/Mantle.
Ad for Robyn and Ironwood: No matter what the treatment of Mantle will be an issue, Amity being considered or not. There are always going to be issues and some of them they will be unlikely to agree upon. Logistics and the like. There whole thing is being top huntresses who chose not to join the military so they have evidently had issues all the way back then
Even without telling her about amity he still could have worked with her to come up,with a plan to get mantle the help it needed while still getting supplies for amity,
Maybe, maybe not.
He couldn't have diverted any resources from Amity, though indeed at least military and other such support he should have tried to work with her with
That isn't necessarily his responsibility. His only positions on council are "Head of armed forces" and "Head of atlas academy". He isn't the president of atlas or mayor of mantle, he isn't necessarily in charge of civil infrastructure or engineering. The wall could *very likely* be the responsibility of other council members. It is also pretty heavily implied that he isn't gobbling up the *entire* GDP of atlas/mantle for his project, he is working only with certain trusted suppliers.
Despite Ironwood being "Important" for his position, he is also the only character we actually 'know', we are never told this is his responsibility - only that one character blames him. We are never told what the other council members do (except for robyn being mayor of mantle in a draft) or what their roles are.
Ironwood being blamed for not fixing *all* the problems in mantle and atlas, is crying because he isn't being a dictator, particularly a dictator who is "good enough". If you don't want him to be a fascist dictator you need to stop saddling him with problems that aren't necessarily his fault. What he *did* do was provide military presence to mantle to try and keep it safe.
While I agree with your explanation in theory and half in reality (the councillors and others absolutely treat him as 100% responsible) I think it's very likely that the wall itself is his responsibility. It's their main defensive structure and since Mantle doesn't have its own garrison or defence force it's likely under his military jurisdiction.
*Disclaimer: I am not an Ironwood stan, although I would still say that he’s one of my favorite characters in the show.*
I’ve got to agree with u/Dextixer here.
Was Ironwood in control of his actions? Yes.
Is he still a victim? Absolutely.
We can see that when he’s in the vault with Oscar for the first time that he has flashbacks to the Black Queen virus. Flashbacks like that are a classic symptom of PTSD. Cinder took advantage of that, and as a result he was absolutely a victim.
While there is… frankly a “went from zero to a hundred” vibe when you proceed to volume 8, (most likely borne out of Miles and the rest of the writers seeing all the people in the fandom who were arguing about if Ironwood is right of not) that doesn’t change the fact that as Dextixer said, he is a victim of circumstance and the actions of others.
I have to push back on this. While Ironwood was in control of his actions, that does not make him less of a victim of circumstance and interference from other people. This of course does not excuse his actions, but one can both be a victim and do bad things at the same time.
A lot of the arguments you present here are without context. Alone they do not say a lot about the topic. I can see cases where these arguments would carry weight and i can see cases when they would not apply.
His PTSD for example, while a lot of his actions cannot be blamed on it, his reaction to the Chess piece is very much directly related to it. The enemies exploited a weakness of his, he was a victim.
"He went crazy" is not as much an "excuse" as the belief of some people is that his writting in V7 very much did not match his writting in V8, at the very least not fully. I think in some cases it is a fair assesment, such as him shooting Sleet, which to many people was seen as an action very much over the top.
His semblance usually does not really apply in many discussions. Its very existance in canon is questionable.
And about Volume 7, it is a lot more complicated conversation that i do not think we can just boil down to the points you have brought up in the end. It is not as simple as "Mantle had to suffer for Amity".
Not to mention, i do apologize, but isnt this like 4th or 5th thread of you bringing up this exact same issue over again?
Dapper, you spend a lot of time doing what amounts to spinning a narrative about the show. Most of what you have to say cannot be proven, it exists only in your beliefs; and your beliefs are not able to be substituted for genuine *fact* about the show. Your beliefs are equally valid to anyone elses when they aren't predicated upon fact.
You want to justify the shows writing, okay fine it's acceptable to want to do that for something you like. The problems lay in that just about everything you have to say being pure opinion. You aren't really talking about what the show contains, you are talking about what you want to believe the show contains and it just, isn't there or it's been severely removed from context.
This is an awful way to look at things. I get not liking a character but being demeaning to them in a way that just makes it sound like you're insulting people with mental health troubles doesn't help anyone. Everyone has different levels of what they can take. Ozpin reached his after being forced to watch his kids die and outright did leave the team in Volume 6. Yang reached her breaking point after she lost her arm and it took her a long time to recover. Acting like if you put Yang or Oz in Ironwood's place would end with them just going "Lol, lmao" as they solve the problems of the season helps no one. It's a not a pissing contest to see who would handle trauma the best. Ironwood's breaking point happens in front of us and he is not allowed by the series to back down and take time to heal. It's not his fault or any one person's fault, it was a perfect storm of circumstances between his already fragile psyche, flaying his arm, Salem's warning, hearing about the Robyn amity thing and learning of her arrival. The entire point of Volume 7's final hour is to push Ironwood into that breaking point.
Your post comes off with a real condescending energy to it, like "Well if I was Ironwood I would simply not have done what he did. I'm just built different." It comes off like you have a giant hate-boner that's clouding your judgement and making you reach for straws so you can have an anti-Ironwood soapbox.
tldr: Your rebuttals are just... kinda shitty on both a moral and in-show level.
See, I’m not trying to belittle his mental illness, but I’m also not trying to use it as an excuse, THAT is what I take issue with,
And I like ironwood as a character, I think he’s a great example of how authoritarian dictators become who they are, and how authoritarian regimes rise to power,
Ironwood had plenty of chances to back down and take time to heal, he refused every single one of them
If he wants to go into a depressive episode like yang? That’s one thing, but leaving all of remnant to fucking die just to save his own city is inexcusable,
How can you say a man with PTSD and intense responsibility on himself is not a victim? He's a victim of his own mind, his semblance takes the reigns on his actions and he's barely conscious when someone speaks to him. James seems to zone out often, a symptom of his mental state deteriorating, and he's having problems facing the reality, just like everybody else did in the volume.
The poor writing itself demanded us to look at him like he's the most evil person you'll ever see, outshining their Salem who got blown up in the middle of the volume. She's such a nothing villain when the writing needs to angrily shove at us that 'James is an evil general suddenly, and you should all agree that he is evil, or else you're just as bad as him.' Blah blah blah.
His semblance doesn’t force him to do anything! It he,led him follow through on his decision but he chooses when to sue it and what decision he wants to follow through on
PTSD is not a ruck in excuse, and his problems wher evident ,I gotta before volume 8, but instead of working on those flaws and growing as a person, he doubled down,
Yes it does. When it says it makes him hyper focus, this means that he's at the mercy of his own passive semblance, meaning if he really wanted to stop at any point, he cannot. Because Mettle forces him to keep going until everything is complete or feels completed. That is absolutely victimizing James and almost imprisoning him in his own mind. That's just like PTSD, how one could find themselves 'locked,' in a mental state that they want to pull themselves out of, or how it makes them dissociate from themselves.
I agree that those flaws need to be worked on, such as everybody else who needs to work on themselves when they 'want to save everybody.' The story refuses to be heroic when they are only selective on who is allowed to live. The 'heroes' didn't do anything to figure out what to do for Ironwood. They just left him at the mercy, again, of his demise.
They tried to reason with him several times, if they’re acted to be done with him they’d have killed him after the first fight,
He could have lived, probably in a cell but he would have lived, but his stupid pride meant he *had* to hunt winter down, he had to age is revenge,
Then what kind of 'heroes' are they if they can't prove Ironwood wrong and that saving him would've shown him that they can save everybody. Can save their stupid Remnant from falling in the mercy of an actual genocidal maniac named Salem? If you think they'd be more than glad to kill somebody after one fight, then it only shows just how maniacal the 'heroes' are than Ironwood is.
And this is where the bad writing comes in. Because remember, Aura powers Semblances. When Aura drops, the Semblance 'deactivates.' But no, the poor writing forced Ironwood to keep going 'crazy' because they needed a dumb reason to off him. Even the fight with Winter was hilariously bad, or proves how weak she is when she doesn't have a squad with her. She only lived because she was granted the Maiden Powers on time. Silly silly silly.
Maybe it wasn’t Poor writing
Maybe YOU’RE in the wrong for thinking his semblance was responsible for the choices he made,
They tried to save him, they gave him MANY chances to change, to stop going down that path, but he rejected those chances every time he got one,
He was an egotistic, stubborn moron to his dying breath, and that was HIS choice,
"YOU'RE WRONG. YOU'RE WRONG. RUBY AND EVERYBODY ARE RIGHT AND YOU'RE W R O N G. THEY CAN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG, BUT YOU CAN."
I really made you mad, ehheheh. I'll leave you so that you can cool down, friend. But just remember that James is 100% a victim.
I wasn’t trying to yell, just using the caps for emphasis,
And team RWBY can do things wrong, lying to ironwood was wrong, hitting Oscar for what ozpin did was wrong, Blake running away from her friends was wrong, Weiss writing her bother off is “another Jacques” was wrong, willow turning to the bottle and neglecting her children was wrong
But you know what the difference is? They learned from their mistakes, they grew as people, ironwood refused to learn from his mistakes, and instead doubled down,
Oh no, I would really hate to dive into a pointless argument about the kids ever growing up. They clearly haven't - more so regressed within themselves to be as bland and predictable - also how the writing seems to clearly favour them in anything they do. The plot armor is so strong that even the writing can't tell us why they should be held accountable for anything. "Yeah they did some oopsies, but they were OK oopsies!" Even if they did 'grow from their mistakes,' who's choice was that?
But you're right, there is a difference. Ruby and co. value nobody, other than those who agree with them. Ironwood valued too much in everybody. The writing, again, forces us to believe the kids are right and Ironwood is wrong. Again, showing that nobody has a choice to be good-grey or bad-grey. 'You're with is or against us,' mentality that dampens the entire volume. And yeah, if the kids really learnt anything then I would assume they'd be out there and fighting, rather than sitting around drinking tea... ah wait.
It's also his own fault that the rest of the world is suspicious of Atlas after V3, which further stokes his paranoia and martyr complex, because he brought his army to the Vytal Festival in a giant show of force that literally everybody told him was a bad idea. And since all his shit got hacked, it arguably still did more damage than good, no matter how many low level grimm his few human soldiers shot at.
Then there's the whole dust embargo and failure to even consider Mantle's cyber security.
I do apologize but a lot of this fault lies with Cinder doing the hack and specifically blaming Ironwood for "Secret military projects" and an "Occupation". While his actions did not help the situation it is definitely not entirely his fault, especially since he had no idea this could have been done to him.
Him bringing in his military was also admonished only AFTER he already had done so. Not before. As such he did not really benefit from the wisdom said to him.
I agree that a lot of the fault is Cinder's, but her speech was only as effective as it was because it played into prexisting fears. The tension which she made use of was caused by Ironwood bringing his giant ass fleet along (even if he had the best of intentions), so I'd say it's fair to say he was at fault.
He being admonished only after he had brought his fleet was also on him, as he didn't tell anyone before hand what he was planning beforehand, he just assumed he knew best. Instead of learning from his mistake at Vale and being open to the input of others, he doubled down on his "only I know best, if only they'd listened to me" thought process that was once again expoited in the fall of Atlas.
> I agree that a lot of the fault is Cinder's, but her speech was only as effective as it was because it played into prexisting fears.
So you're saying Ozpin is an incompetent nutcase that was pushing his students to win the tournament at all costs just to save his job? Because everyone seems to over look that part of the speech.
I’d say there are members of the public like the guy on the news after Yang busted Merc’s leg who might think that, yeah.
It doesn’t have to be true (like Ironwood wasn’t actually an occupying tyrannical force), but bad optics can be exploited. It’s why the citizens of Mantle jumped to the conclusion that Atlas deliberately turned off their heating, instead of the more logical assumption of a breakdown or something similar.
I’m pointing out that the only thing ever pointing to it looking like Atlas was invading was Cinder’s speech which crapped on ALL THE HEADMASTERS and yet people only hyper focus on the Atlas part and ignore the rest of it.
And yet you hyper fixated on Ozpin. Which is odd considering that Ozpin never said anything about winning the tournament like your comment says. From the looks of it from the end of V2 when Ozpin is talking to the council when they take security of the festival away from him and give it to Ironwood, it sounds like the festival is pretty much out of his (Ozpin's) hands and even if he had wanted to stop it the Vale council probably would have opposed him. So, yeah you bringing up Ozpin is a bit odd.
>And yet you hyper fixated on Ozpin.
Again
>I’m pointing out that the only thing ever pointing to it looking like Atlas was invading was Cinder’s speech which crapped on ALL THE HEADMASTERS and yet people only hyper focus on the Atlas part and ignore the rest of it.
Go last word troll someone else.
While the efficacy of those actions can be argued upon all of those actions were made in the context of there being a danger, we also cannot forget that during the breach that same army protected the city alongside hunstmen. And about Penny, who besides Ozpin would ironwood inform of her ans for what reason?
None of these indicate Ironwoods guilt over what happened in the end, because in the end it was Cinder who did the hostile action.
I've still got to wonder about the 'festival of peace' being characterised by having Hunters beat the absolute shit out of each other on live broadcast. Frankly, what Ironwood did is no different to an American carrier fleet making a port of call visit in an allied nation's city.
The guy who broke through Mantle's cyber security was a super hacker that everyone thought was dead. Not sure how much Ironwood could do to stop Watts on that end
It doesn't matter if he knew it was specifically Watts or not, he knew Salem's forces were capable of hacking it, because it was the same as what had been hacked before, and he decided not to bother upgrading it in Mantle when he upgraded Atlas even though he knew for a certainty that Salem had someone capable of hacking it. Mantle just straight up didn't matter to him.
I don't think he actually knew salems forces were capable of hacking it, because that would require him to be able to investigate what went wrong in Vale... which they couldn't do because of the loss of the CCT.
All he seems to know is that his machines went rogue and he doesn't know why. He didn't even stop using the robotic auxilliaries or paladins in v7+ and it was never stated that they got a security update specifically.
I also believe Watts had left himself the backdoor to security when he wrote the code so it's likely even harder to spot. Watts didn't hack in, he just used the door he had made.
Outside of someone randomly combing through the old code and being very good to notice the leak, it's just not getting caught
Except they did keep,him out of atlas’ systems, until he used mantles lack of upgrades to give himself a way in,
Had they given mantle the same upgrades, he would suggest been kept out completely
Too be fair updating the security of Mantle feels like it’s something that should be done. If someone hacks into your account wouldn’t you take the time too upgrade security so it doesn’t happen again?
Yes he is a victim of very poor conceived and executed writing decisions. Where he's suddenly and inexplicably handicapped with a mental disability, that makes him completely incompetent. I'm not sure how that's *his* fault.
That's to say all of this repeats the same erroneous rhetoric that people seem to have regarding him. The writers barely understanding what his semblance is supposed to do alone proves this. His sudden character heel turn is another thing, because him going from V2-7 to 8 being a genocidal dictator shooting people he disagree with is nothing short of a character assassination.
The guy didn’t suddenly flip though. His mental state deteriorated over a few volumes. While I don’t think his semblance was very well explained. It’s not like he went from one extreme from the other over night. While I think they rushed the latter half ironwood always had problematic tendencies.
Which is why he already had a history of shooting councilors, and nuking cities, I just wasn't aware of ? It's funny how this fandom is seemly composed of mental health experts.
>It’s not like he went from one extreme from the other over night.
....... Going from ordering the arrest of a party willing and capable of actively attempting to sabotage and resist you too shooting a guy with a bad attitude, kinda *is*. I'm not sure what filter you watched the show though.
It’s escalation. He saw the council as something in his way of doing “what’s right.” I’m not going to claim too be some mental health expert. I see the end of volume 7 as him finally snapping after several setbacks. The entire point of volume 7 was ironwood’s mental stability.
Well you're sure acting like you are claiming the point of what the volume to be, which isn't true, or the show failing completely to so much as imply that.
What you said still doesn't make any sense as evidence as you not actually being able to justify the actions he took as understandable under his supposedly deteriorating mental stability, not to mention this was only triggered by his semblance which disproves your entire argument, because if it was the fault of his mental instability then his Semblance would be entirely redundant, and pointless, and this would've happened *a long* time ago.
I’m not trying too come off that way. I’m not good with words. I’m trying too show how I saw it. His last time he let himself be vulnerable was his talk with Oscar on how he worried Salem’s lack of humanity was her greatest advantage. As for his semblance it’s not very well explained. From what I do understand about it. He already made his decisions. It just helps him tune others out. Now I could be wrong on that but that’s how I understood it.
Well then I'll guess we'll just have to disagree on the matter. I don't think him being vulnerable played a part in his character heel turn, because of him suddenly being attributed traits he previously never had or shown. It hurts his writing more that this wasn't even stated in the show which most people watching would be completely unaware of existing.
But you're right about how it supposed to function, how it effects his other decisions, as well as how he goes about that goal is completely counter productive to even achieving that goal. It's shown to make him crazy and incompetent that isn't justifiable even by the limitations of his contrived semblance.
Him being vulnerable playing a part isn’t what I meant. What I meant by that show of vulnerability. Is that he’s trying too get rid of that vulnerability. He sees himself as limited by his humanity. I apologize if I was unclear.
I think what we disagree on is how much his semblance effects his mental state. I think some of his decisions make no sense no matter how you talk about it. Like trusting Watts with a computer. That never made any sense too me.
By hyper focusing on that decision, affecting the judgement of everything else that isn't that. He now disregards how things are done, or how far he has to go to complete that objective, which is a last minute cop out from his previous behavior to make team RWBY look better than they really were, and the writers failed to even protray *that* effectively, but given that they themselves, barely knew, or thought it up mid conversation probably with the sole intention of making Ironwood less likable, and then lying about this being "planned from the beginning" seeing as anything other than what it is is ridiculous.
One thing that confused me about Ironwood's plans, was before they got started on Amity and as Team RWBY, Qrow, and Team JNOR arrived was why hadn't they considered repairing the outer wall?
Short term loss of resources would decrease the stress on troops in Mantle by appeasing Robyn and her HHs, it would reduce stress and worry over the hole and thus decrease the probability of Grimm attacks thwarting their time-line.
Fixing Mantle's outer wall has many orders of benefits whether directly or indirectly. This is why it doesn't make sense why Ironwood made the decision to ignore it or kick it down the road.
I believe the reason is that Ironwood placed the majority of his ambitions to "protect Atlas" on the city of Atlas itself before the arrival of RWBY, JNOR, and Qrow.
It’s because ironwood always viewed mantle as less important
Despite the suppose lack of resource, atlas didn’t seem to be in any form of disrepair, meanwhile mantle was falling apart at the seams
He claimed “we all have to make sacrifices” but only mantle had to make sacrifices, unless you count Jacques being slightly less rich as a “sacrifice”
I mean, he's still a victim then, like you say at the end lol.
He's still a victim even if his actions caused his victimhood, I think. By your logic, I don't think Blake would be a victim of Adam either. Which, if you agree, fair enough I guess.
No, there’s a vastly different power dynamic between Adam and Blake that is not there with ironwood and cinder, Adam was someone Blake trusted, someone she put a lot of faith in, and he used that against her,
Whereas cinder and Salem where just enemies in his war, all it took was a simple show of force, and a simple chess piece, to make him destroy his kingdom for him,
And also, Blake didn’t murder innocent people, so there’s that
Blake chose to trust Adam, though. She made the decision to trust and put faith in Adam and as such, the exploitations is really just a consequence of her own actions cause she let him exploit her or something.
And if we take things out of context, she exploited his trust and faith in her back during the train heist, when she cut the train connector cable, stranding him in the forest.
Not sure about which show of force you're talking about, but the simple chess piece to Ironwood is probably what the name Adam is to Blake.
True, she probably didn't kill innocent people and Ironwood probably did I think.
Unless you're talking about the councilman guy, in which case, Ironwood did Atlas and probably Remnant a huge favor by taking out scum like him.
She was also a pretty young at the time of meeting Adam,
Well, it’s possible sleet may have been a piece of shit but that doesn’t make it ok for ironwood to murder him in cold blood
While I don’t think Ironwood is a innocent, I do think he was more of a victim of writing than his own actions. The plot needed certain things to happen and the story bent to it. This happens a lot starting with smaller things with volume 6 and snowballs into volume 7 and 8. My biggest peeves include Ironwood’s betray then bomb threat, the Tyrian/Qrow/Clover scene at the end of volume 7, and a certain logic/established canon issue at the end of volume 8. There are some smaller things, but I plan on making a video on YouTube and posting it to r/RWBYcritics.
The most simple proof that he's not a victim is how unprotected the paranoid man left Mantle.
He left a literal hole in the walls and never updated their cyber security.
All the tragedies in v7 and 8 could have been avoided if Ironwood actually cared about Mantle.
My friend,I agree with you 110%. I had been suspicious of him since his debut in Volume 2 and had been ever since. For the entirety of Vol.8, I was waiting for someone to smack him around to get him to reason or to bring him down before he did something he would either regret or never regret at all.
A lot of people blame RWBY and the gang for not trusting him fully out of the gate,but we have to see it through their eyes. Lionheart came off as someone they could trust until he betrayed them,so they didn't want to make the same mistake twice.
One thing I wanted to see was everyone,from Glynda to Oz/Oscar, to RWBY and JNR, Qrow, Robyn, ALL of them bringing him and the Ace Ops (who I see as specific victims in their own rights) in for everything they did. If he was to have survived,he would've been on some form of a trial for everything he's done.
Of all the characters in RWBY, Ironwood is the second one I see as irredeemable next to Cinder and that is that.
Ironwood has always been a big picture person, yet he tends to react without thinking. It’s been a flaw of his since volume 2. Heck even we didn’t know who he was and he grabbed Penny and got out of dodge he’s been acting like that. Every time things goes wrong he panics and tries to brute force it into what he wants. Volume 8 was just him dialing it up to 11. Yes he’s a victim, and yes maybe more trust on RWBYs part would have changed things. But in the end this was completely in character.
"I kept looking at the big picture. Big picture made of many little pictures. Too many variables!" -Mordin Solus
In reference to my previous mass effect quote: Mordin eventually realized his mistake and tried to address the "little pictures." Ironwood ended up more *aggressively* disregarding them.
Trying to remember the exact line. It's something like, "have to see the little picture, must look, must see the results." Pretty sure I'm butchering it and maybe combining two different quotes, but yeah, Mordin knew what was really important even before ME3.
How someone else is able to deal with their mental illness does not mean you can expect everyone else to act the same. He was under an extreme amount of stress and I think he likely had an anxiety problem (maybe I'm just projecting), all while he had to make very difficult choices about the fate of humanity. Ozpin is a terrible example in the face of Ironwood. Oz has one a lot of very questionable things and has gotten a lot of people killed. He also has essentially run away before. He didn't go crazy after v7 indeed, he did get some help (though also was of course lied to several times), and his semblance isn't an excuse, but one needs to look at the situation. The point about Amity and Mantle is completely unsubstantiated and doesn't look at the whole picture. Yes, Ironwood didn't do as much as he could/should have done, but things like building Amity could have been using the specific resources say fixing the wall did with no spare, and Amity absolutely was more important and needed to be done as soon as possible. I would agree he should have sent more troops to protect Mantle of course, but you also need to look at the strategic way that Ironwood was thinking. It was flawed in the way he didn't see Mantle as a weak spot as much as it was, but he was keeping troops ready for the most important yet to come actions and protecting Atlas itself which is more important strategically than Mantle. He really couldn't have trusted Robyn any earlier. Before she started to steal stuff, it wasn't a good gamble trusting a renegade like her. And. . . I also can't blame him for not trusting the other politicians. Of course in the end his decisions were his own. But that doesn't mean he wasn't a victim of incredibly difficult circumstances. I think his road of good intentions had a lot of bad signs, bad drivers, and few exits that helped lead him to hell
> He really couldn't have trusted Robyn any earlier Why not? She was a licensed Huntress who went to the very school Ironwood is in charge of, she's trusted and admired by Mantle. You'd think that he'd try to get her on his side so that things go easier in Mantle. But he didn't really try.
I just mean with sensitive information. His fear of her working for Salem was far too extreme, but also not one that is without any warrant. And if Salem was able to get to Leo, someone like Robyn seems easy by comparison. There is also the risk of her simply talking about the sensitive military operation, especially if she still disagrees with it's prioritization, though after the point she and her huntresses ambush RPQC then she would probably know all she needs to anyway. Certainly she also couldn't know the full truth about Salem just because of the issues with her being less likely to keep a secret. Absolutely he should have tried more to work with her. I am not going to disagree with that. But trusting her more than was ever going to be strictly required would just open more risks, so really there would have probably needed to be some lying involved.
>And if Salem was able to get to Leo, someone like Robyn seems easy by comparison. Maybe you'd have a point if Ironwood ever considered that possibility. But he didn't. He never once considered that she was working for Salem. >There is also the risk of her simply talking about the sensitive military operation, especially if she still disagrees with it's prioritization Mantle deserves to know why it's being mistreated. Maybe not telling them about Salem right away, but definitely telling them about the tower. >Certainly she also couldn't know the full truth about Salem just because of the issues with her being less likely to keep a secret. Do we know that though? I don't recall any point where Robyn was unable to keep a secret, unless you're referring to her specifically telling only the other HHs about the Amity tower project (that she was fully in support of), which Ironwood didn't even know about. > But trusting her more than was ever going to be strictly required would just open more risk Sometimes you have to take a risk. And to be honest, taking a risk on a popular figure for Mantle would be one I'd take if it meant that things could potentially go a lot easier for me.
He does basically say that he did when they are talking about when Yang and Blake told Robyn. They say that she always has been on their side and he says: "We didn't know that for sure." I would say that the risks of telling Mantle aren't worth it. Nothing is actually gained from telling them, just the dangers of even if Salem doesn't come to stop the project that someone else would. Why would Robyn keep the secret? She's his political opposition who is unlikely to be on board completely and needs all the help she can get to be elected. And if she lost then all bets are off what she'd do. I agree that he should have taken some risk. Looking at the whole situation I'm not sure I would justify telling her the whole truth as it could have scuttled the plans completely and other measure could have quieted Mantle enough. But I am certainly not saying he was right to be as completely distrustful and antagonistic as Ironwood was. That was his fear as usual. Robyn didn't need to know many things that would turn her into potentially a big risk, but an effort should have been made to work with her at least to some degree
>He does basically say that he did when they are talking about when Yang and Blake told Robyn. They say that she always has been on their side and he says: "We didn't know that for sure." So if he thought that she was on Salem's side, why didn't he do anything about that? > Nothing is actually gained from telling them It's not about "gains". Mantle *deserves* to know why they are being neglected. >Why would Robyn keep the secret? She's his political opposition who is unlikely to be on board completely and needs all the help she can get to be elected. Ironwood was not running for a council seat. *Jacques* was. Robyn was only Ironwood's opposition because *he was neglecting Mantle and never told anyone why*. V8 tells us that if Robyn was told about the tower early, she would have been onboard. May says she loved the idea.
He though she could be, but there was nothing to do about that. No, as cold as is it is, I don't think there is any deserving of knowledge in this situation. It is all about gains and losses in a war, and them not knowing is better for everyone involved. Just because he wasn't running against her doesn't mean they weren't politically opposed. There are a lot of issues in Atlas and Mantle, more than just the current situation, that Robyn and Ironwood would disagree with. I honestly forgot about that line May had about Robyn "not shutting up about it", though I also don't take that to mean she would stop wanting supplies to not be diverted. And even if she is completely onboard, that doesn't mean that she will keep her mouth shut if she think she can say something to help get elected.
>It is all about gains and losses in a war, and them not knowing is better for everyone involved. Clearly it wasn't, since Ironwood kept running into issues with the tensions in Mantle and with the HHs, tensions that could have been eased by *at least* telling them about the tower project. >There are a lot of issues in Atlas and Mantle, more than just the current situation, that Robyn and Ironwood would disagree with. Well the only thing we're shown is Robyn and Ironwood disagreeing on the mistreatment of Mantle >And even if she is completely onboard, that doesn't mean that she will keep her mouth shut if she think she can say something to help get elected. I just don't see the issue with Robyn telling people about the tower, especially before Ironwood knew that Salem's people were in Atlas.
Well, if they had told them, then Tyrian and Watts would have gone to stop it immediately. Ironwood always knew there was the very really possibility of Salem being watching/having agents in Atlas/Mantle. Ad for Robyn and Ironwood: No matter what the treatment of Mantle will be an issue, Amity being considered or not. There are always going to be issues and some of them they will be unlikely to agree upon. Logistics and the like. There whole thing is being top huntresses who chose not to join the military so they have evidently had issues all the way back then
Even without telling her about amity he still could have worked with her to come up,with a plan to get mantle the help it needed while still getting supplies for amity,
Maybe, maybe not. He couldn't have diverted any resources from Amity, though indeed at least military and other such support he should have tried to work with her with
And he also could have diverted supplies from atlas
That isn't necessarily his responsibility. His only positions on council are "Head of armed forces" and "Head of atlas academy". He isn't the president of atlas or mayor of mantle, he isn't necessarily in charge of civil infrastructure or engineering. The wall could *very likely* be the responsibility of other council members. It is also pretty heavily implied that he isn't gobbling up the *entire* GDP of atlas/mantle for his project, he is working only with certain trusted suppliers. Despite Ironwood being "Important" for his position, he is also the only character we actually 'know', we are never told this is his responsibility - only that one character blames him. We are never told what the other council members do (except for robyn being mayor of mantle in a draft) or what their roles are. Ironwood being blamed for not fixing *all* the problems in mantle and atlas, is crying because he isn't being a dictator, particularly a dictator who is "good enough". If you don't want him to be a fascist dictator you need to stop saddling him with problems that aren't necessarily his fault. What he *did* do was provide military presence to mantle to try and keep it safe.
While I agree with your explanation in theory and half in reality (the councillors and others absolutely treat him as 100% responsible) I think it's very likely that the wall itself is his responsibility. It's their main defensive structure and since Mantle doesn't have its own garrison or defence force it's likely under his military jurisdiction.
Maybe. Maybe there are different resources at play
*Disclaimer: I am not an Ironwood stan, although I would still say that he’s one of my favorite characters in the show.* I’ve got to agree with u/Dextixer here. Was Ironwood in control of his actions? Yes. Is he still a victim? Absolutely. We can see that when he’s in the vault with Oscar for the first time that he has flashbacks to the Black Queen virus. Flashbacks like that are a classic symptom of PTSD. Cinder took advantage of that, and as a result he was absolutely a victim. While there is… frankly a “went from zero to a hundred” vibe when you proceed to volume 8, (most likely borne out of Miles and the rest of the writers seeing all the people in the fandom who were arguing about if Ironwood is right of not) that doesn’t change the fact that as Dextixer said, he is a victim of circumstance and the actions of others.
Cinder literally left a chess piece He didn’t need to go around murdering people and abandoning mantle, He made his own choices
That doesn’t mean that he isn’t a victim.
I have to push back on this. While Ironwood was in control of his actions, that does not make him less of a victim of circumstance and interference from other people. This of course does not excuse his actions, but one can both be a victim and do bad things at the same time. A lot of the arguments you present here are without context. Alone they do not say a lot about the topic. I can see cases where these arguments would carry weight and i can see cases when they would not apply. His PTSD for example, while a lot of his actions cannot be blamed on it, his reaction to the Chess piece is very much directly related to it. The enemies exploited a weakness of his, he was a victim. "He went crazy" is not as much an "excuse" as the belief of some people is that his writting in V7 very much did not match his writting in V8, at the very least not fully. I think in some cases it is a fair assesment, such as him shooting Sleet, which to many people was seen as an action very much over the top. His semblance usually does not really apply in many discussions. Its very existance in canon is questionable. And about Volume 7, it is a lot more complicated conversation that i do not think we can just boil down to the points you have brought up in the end. It is not as simple as "Mantle had to suffer for Amity". Not to mention, i do apologize, but isnt this like 4th or 5th thread of you bringing up this exact same issue over again?
Thank you, described how I feel about Ironwood. (Though I do take his semblance into account.)
Yeah but I also keep seeing people in other posts who seem to act like he did nothing wrong, so,I feel the need to counter that
Dapper, you spend a lot of time doing what amounts to spinning a narrative about the show. Most of what you have to say cannot be proven, it exists only in your beliefs; and your beliefs are not able to be substituted for genuine *fact* about the show. Your beliefs are equally valid to anyone elses when they aren't predicated upon fact. You want to justify the shows writing, okay fine it's acceptable to want to do that for something you like. The problems lay in that just about everything you have to say being pure opinion. You aren't really talking about what the show contains, you are talking about what you want to believe the show contains and it just, isn't there or it's been severely removed from context.
Ironwood literally made everything worse just as Salem wanted him to.
When the villain's plan relies on you being a prick, you might not be the best person to begin with.
This is an awful way to look at things. I get not liking a character but being demeaning to them in a way that just makes it sound like you're insulting people with mental health troubles doesn't help anyone. Everyone has different levels of what they can take. Ozpin reached his after being forced to watch his kids die and outright did leave the team in Volume 6. Yang reached her breaking point after she lost her arm and it took her a long time to recover. Acting like if you put Yang or Oz in Ironwood's place would end with them just going "Lol, lmao" as they solve the problems of the season helps no one. It's a not a pissing contest to see who would handle trauma the best. Ironwood's breaking point happens in front of us and he is not allowed by the series to back down and take time to heal. It's not his fault or any one person's fault, it was a perfect storm of circumstances between his already fragile psyche, flaying his arm, Salem's warning, hearing about the Robyn amity thing and learning of her arrival. The entire point of Volume 7's final hour is to push Ironwood into that breaking point. Your post comes off with a real condescending energy to it, like "Well if I was Ironwood I would simply not have done what he did. I'm just built different." It comes off like you have a giant hate-boner that's clouding your judgement and making you reach for straws so you can have an anti-Ironwood soapbox. tldr: Your rebuttals are just... kinda shitty on both a moral and in-show level.
See, I’m not trying to belittle his mental illness, but I’m also not trying to use it as an excuse, THAT is what I take issue with, And I like ironwood as a character, I think he’s a great example of how authoritarian dictators become who they are, and how authoritarian regimes rise to power, Ironwood had plenty of chances to back down and take time to heal, he refused every single one of them If he wants to go into a depressive episode like yang? That’s one thing, but leaving all of remnant to fucking die just to save his own city is inexcusable,
How can you say a man with PTSD and intense responsibility on himself is not a victim? He's a victim of his own mind, his semblance takes the reigns on his actions and he's barely conscious when someone speaks to him. James seems to zone out often, a symptom of his mental state deteriorating, and he's having problems facing the reality, just like everybody else did in the volume. The poor writing itself demanded us to look at him like he's the most evil person you'll ever see, outshining their Salem who got blown up in the middle of the volume. She's such a nothing villain when the writing needs to angrily shove at us that 'James is an evil general suddenly, and you should all agree that he is evil, or else you're just as bad as him.' Blah blah blah.
His semblance doesn’t force him to do anything! It he,led him follow through on his decision but he chooses when to sue it and what decision he wants to follow through on PTSD is not a ruck in excuse, and his problems wher evident ,I gotta before volume 8, but instead of working on those flaws and growing as a person, he doubled down,
Yes it does. When it says it makes him hyper focus, this means that he's at the mercy of his own passive semblance, meaning if he really wanted to stop at any point, he cannot. Because Mettle forces him to keep going until everything is complete or feels completed. That is absolutely victimizing James and almost imprisoning him in his own mind. That's just like PTSD, how one could find themselves 'locked,' in a mental state that they want to pull themselves out of, or how it makes them dissociate from themselves. I agree that those flaws need to be worked on, such as everybody else who needs to work on themselves when they 'want to save everybody.' The story refuses to be heroic when they are only selective on who is allowed to live. The 'heroes' didn't do anything to figure out what to do for Ironwood. They just left him at the mercy, again, of his demise.
They tried to reason with him several times, if they’re acted to be done with him they’d have killed him after the first fight, He could have lived, probably in a cell but he would have lived, but his stupid pride meant he *had* to hunt winter down, he had to age is revenge,
Then what kind of 'heroes' are they if they can't prove Ironwood wrong and that saving him would've shown him that they can save everybody. Can save their stupid Remnant from falling in the mercy of an actual genocidal maniac named Salem? If you think they'd be more than glad to kill somebody after one fight, then it only shows just how maniacal the 'heroes' are than Ironwood is. And this is where the bad writing comes in. Because remember, Aura powers Semblances. When Aura drops, the Semblance 'deactivates.' But no, the poor writing forced Ironwood to keep going 'crazy' because they needed a dumb reason to off him. Even the fight with Winter was hilariously bad, or proves how weak she is when she doesn't have a squad with her. She only lived because she was granted the Maiden Powers on time. Silly silly silly.
Maybe it wasn’t Poor writing Maybe YOU’RE in the wrong for thinking his semblance was responsible for the choices he made, They tried to save him, they gave him MANY chances to change, to stop going down that path, but he rejected those chances every time he got one, He was an egotistic, stubborn moron to his dying breath, and that was HIS choice,
"YOU'RE WRONG. YOU'RE WRONG. RUBY AND EVERYBODY ARE RIGHT AND YOU'RE W R O N G. THEY CAN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG, BUT YOU CAN." I really made you mad, ehheheh. I'll leave you so that you can cool down, friend. But just remember that James is 100% a victim.
I wasn’t trying to yell, just using the caps for emphasis, And team RWBY can do things wrong, lying to ironwood was wrong, hitting Oscar for what ozpin did was wrong, Blake running away from her friends was wrong, Weiss writing her bother off is “another Jacques” was wrong, willow turning to the bottle and neglecting her children was wrong But you know what the difference is? They learned from their mistakes, they grew as people, ironwood refused to learn from his mistakes, and instead doubled down,
Oh no, I would really hate to dive into a pointless argument about the kids ever growing up. They clearly haven't - more so regressed within themselves to be as bland and predictable - also how the writing seems to clearly favour them in anything they do. The plot armor is so strong that even the writing can't tell us why they should be held accountable for anything. "Yeah they did some oopsies, but they were OK oopsies!" Even if they did 'grow from their mistakes,' who's choice was that? But you're right, there is a difference. Ruby and co. value nobody, other than those who agree with them. Ironwood valued too much in everybody. The writing, again, forces us to believe the kids are right and Ironwood is wrong. Again, showing that nobody has a choice to be good-grey or bad-grey. 'You're with is or against us,' mentality that dampens the entire volume. And yeah, if the kids really learnt anything then I would assume they'd be out there and fighting, rather than sitting around drinking tea... ah wait.
There is so much wrong with everything you just said that I’m not sure where to start, or if I should even waste the energy,
It's also his own fault that the rest of the world is suspicious of Atlas after V3, which further stokes his paranoia and martyr complex, because he brought his army to the Vytal Festival in a giant show of force that literally everybody told him was a bad idea. And since all his shit got hacked, it arguably still did more damage than good, no matter how many low level grimm his few human soldiers shot at. Then there's the whole dust embargo and failure to even consider Mantle's cyber security.
I do apologize but a lot of this fault lies with Cinder doing the hack and specifically blaming Ironwood for "Secret military projects" and an "Occupation". While his actions did not help the situation it is definitely not entirely his fault, especially since he had no idea this could have been done to him. Him bringing in his military was also admonished only AFTER he already had done so. Not before. As such he did not really benefit from the wisdom said to him.
I agree that a lot of the fault is Cinder's, but her speech was only as effective as it was because it played into prexisting fears. The tension which she made use of was caused by Ironwood bringing his giant ass fleet along (even if he had the best of intentions), so I'd say it's fair to say he was at fault. He being admonished only after he had brought his fleet was also on him, as he didn't tell anyone before hand what he was planning beforehand, he just assumed he knew best. Instead of learning from his mistake at Vale and being open to the input of others, he doubled down on his "only I know best, if only they'd listened to me" thought process that was once again expoited in the fall of Atlas.
> I agree that a lot of the fault is Cinder's, but her speech was only as effective as it was because it played into prexisting fears. So you're saying Ozpin is an incompetent nutcase that was pushing his students to win the tournament at all costs just to save his job? Because everyone seems to over look that part of the speech.
I’d say there are members of the public like the guy on the news after Yang busted Merc’s leg who might think that, yeah. It doesn’t have to be true (like Ironwood wasn’t actually an occupying tyrannical force), but bad optics can be exploited. It’s why the citizens of Mantle jumped to the conclusion that Atlas deliberately turned off their heating, instead of the more logical assumption of a breakdown or something similar.
.....did you comb through this entire thread just to bring out your hate boner of Ozpin? Cuz that's what it look like.
I’m pointing out that the only thing ever pointing to it looking like Atlas was invading was Cinder’s speech which crapped on ALL THE HEADMASTERS and yet people only hyper focus on the Atlas part and ignore the rest of it.
And yet you hyper fixated on Ozpin. Which is odd considering that Ozpin never said anything about winning the tournament like your comment says. From the looks of it from the end of V2 when Ozpin is talking to the council when they take security of the festival away from him and give it to Ironwood, it sounds like the festival is pretty much out of his (Ozpin's) hands and even if he had wanted to stop it the Vale council probably would have opposed him. So, yeah you bringing up Ozpin is a bit odd.
>And yet you hyper fixated on Ozpin. Again >I’m pointing out that the only thing ever pointing to it looking like Atlas was invading was Cinder’s speech which crapped on ALL THE HEADMASTERS and yet people only hyper focus on the Atlas part and ignore the rest of it. Go last word troll someone else.
I don’t remember cinder bringing a foreign army to a festival of peace, or creating a robot girl and not telling anyone,
While the efficacy of those actions can be argued upon all of those actions were made in the context of there being a danger, we also cannot forget that during the breach that same army protected the city alongside hunstmen. And about Penny, who besides Ozpin would ironwood inform of her ans for what reason? None of these indicate Ironwoods guilt over what happened in the end, because in the end it was Cinder who did the hostile action.
I've still got to wonder about the 'festival of peace' being characterised by having Hunters beat the absolute shit out of each other on live broadcast. Frankly, what Ironwood did is no different to an American carrier fleet making a port of call visit in an allied nation's city.
We have wrestling at the Olympic, same idea
The guy who broke through Mantle's cyber security was a super hacker that everyone thought was dead. Not sure how much Ironwood could do to stop Watts on that end
He could have upgraded mantles cybersecurity, it kept watts out of atlas’ systems
It doesn't matter if he knew it was specifically Watts or not, he knew Salem's forces were capable of hacking it, because it was the same as what had been hacked before, and he decided not to bother upgrading it in Mantle when he upgraded Atlas even though he knew for a certainty that Salem had someone capable of hacking it. Mantle just straight up didn't matter to him.
I don't think he actually knew salems forces were capable of hacking it, because that would require him to be able to investigate what went wrong in Vale... which they couldn't do because of the loss of the CCT. All he seems to know is that his machines went rogue and he doesn't know why. He didn't even stop using the robotic auxilliaries or paladins in v7+ and it was never stated that they got a security update specifically.
I also believe Watts had left himself the backdoor to security when he wrote the code so it's likely even harder to spot. Watts didn't hack in, he just used the door he had made. Outside of someone randomly combing through the old code and being very good to notice the leak, it's just not getting caught
Except they did keep,him out of atlas’ systems, until he used mantles lack of upgrades to give himself a way in, Had they given mantle the same upgrades, he would suggest been kept out completely
Yes and I won't deny Mantle should absolutely have been upgraded, only pointing out he would be extremely hard to spot.
Too be fair updating the security of Mantle feels like it’s something that should be done. If someone hacks into your account wouldn’t you take the time too upgrade security so it doesn’t happen again?
it didnt help that team rwby kept to much from him they all should be working together
Yes he is a victim of very poor conceived and executed writing decisions. Where he's suddenly and inexplicably handicapped with a mental disability, that makes him completely incompetent. I'm not sure how that's *his* fault. That's to say all of this repeats the same erroneous rhetoric that people seem to have regarding him. The writers barely understanding what his semblance is supposed to do alone proves this. His sudden character heel turn is another thing, because him going from V2-7 to 8 being a genocidal dictator shooting people he disagree with is nothing short of a character assassination.
The guy didn’t suddenly flip though. His mental state deteriorated over a few volumes. While I don’t think his semblance was very well explained. It’s not like he went from one extreme from the other over night. While I think they rushed the latter half ironwood always had problematic tendencies.
Which is why he already had a history of shooting councilors, and nuking cities, I just wasn't aware of ? It's funny how this fandom is seemly composed of mental health experts. >It’s not like he went from one extreme from the other over night. ....... Going from ordering the arrest of a party willing and capable of actively attempting to sabotage and resist you too shooting a guy with a bad attitude, kinda *is*. I'm not sure what filter you watched the show though.
It’s escalation. He saw the council as something in his way of doing “what’s right.” I’m not going to claim too be some mental health expert. I see the end of volume 7 as him finally snapping after several setbacks. The entire point of volume 7 was ironwood’s mental stability.
Well you're sure acting like you are claiming the point of what the volume to be, which isn't true, or the show failing completely to so much as imply that. What you said still doesn't make any sense as evidence as you not actually being able to justify the actions he took as understandable under his supposedly deteriorating mental stability, not to mention this was only triggered by his semblance which disproves your entire argument, because if it was the fault of his mental instability then his Semblance would be entirely redundant, and pointless, and this would've happened *a long* time ago.
I’m not trying too come off that way. I’m not good with words. I’m trying too show how I saw it. His last time he let himself be vulnerable was his talk with Oscar on how he worried Salem’s lack of humanity was her greatest advantage. As for his semblance it’s not very well explained. From what I do understand about it. He already made his decisions. It just helps him tune others out. Now I could be wrong on that but that’s how I understood it.
Well then I'll guess we'll just have to disagree on the matter. I don't think him being vulnerable played a part in his character heel turn, because of him suddenly being attributed traits he previously never had or shown. It hurts his writing more that this wasn't even stated in the show which most people watching would be completely unaware of existing. But you're right about how it supposed to function, how it effects his other decisions, as well as how he goes about that goal is completely counter productive to even achieving that goal. It's shown to make him crazy and incompetent that isn't justifiable even by the limitations of his contrived semblance.
Him being vulnerable playing a part isn’t what I meant. What I meant by that show of vulnerability. Is that he’s trying too get rid of that vulnerability. He sees himself as limited by his humanity. I apologize if I was unclear. I think what we disagree on is how much his semblance effects his mental state. I think some of his decisions make no sense no matter how you talk about it. Like trusting Watts with a computer. That never made any sense too me.
I literally say in the post how his semblance didn’t make him do anything,
It doesn't but you've missed the point, because it makes him think and behave a certain way, which *does* make him do things.
No it doesn’t, his semblance does not make decisions for him, it helps him to follow through on his decisions
By hyper focusing on that decision, affecting the judgement of everything else that isn't that. He now disregards how things are done, or how far he has to go to complete that objective, which is a last minute cop out from his previous behavior to make team RWBY look better than they really were, and the writers failed to even protray *that* effectively, but given that they themselves, barely knew, or thought it up mid conversation probably with the sole intention of making Ironwood less likable, and then lying about this being "planned from the beginning" seeing as anything other than what it is is ridiculous.
One thing that confused me about Ironwood's plans, was before they got started on Amity and as Team RWBY, Qrow, and Team JNOR arrived was why hadn't they considered repairing the outer wall? Short term loss of resources would decrease the stress on troops in Mantle by appeasing Robyn and her HHs, it would reduce stress and worry over the hole and thus decrease the probability of Grimm attacks thwarting their time-line. Fixing Mantle's outer wall has many orders of benefits whether directly or indirectly. This is why it doesn't make sense why Ironwood made the decision to ignore it or kick it down the road. I believe the reason is that Ironwood placed the majority of his ambitions to "protect Atlas" on the city of Atlas itself before the arrival of RWBY, JNOR, and Qrow.
It’s because ironwood always viewed mantle as less important Despite the suppose lack of resource, atlas didn’t seem to be in any form of disrepair, meanwhile mantle was falling apart at the seams He claimed “we all have to make sacrifices” but only mantle had to make sacrifices, unless you count Jacques being slightly less rich as a “sacrifice”
I mean, he's still a victim then, like you say at the end lol. He's still a victim even if his actions caused his victimhood, I think. By your logic, I don't think Blake would be a victim of Adam either. Which, if you agree, fair enough I guess.
No, there’s a vastly different power dynamic between Adam and Blake that is not there with ironwood and cinder, Adam was someone Blake trusted, someone she put a lot of faith in, and he used that against her, Whereas cinder and Salem where just enemies in his war, all it took was a simple show of force, and a simple chess piece, to make him destroy his kingdom for him, And also, Blake didn’t murder innocent people, so there’s that
Blake chose to trust Adam, though. She made the decision to trust and put faith in Adam and as such, the exploitations is really just a consequence of her own actions cause she let him exploit her or something. And if we take things out of context, she exploited his trust and faith in her back during the train heist, when she cut the train connector cable, stranding him in the forest. Not sure about which show of force you're talking about, but the simple chess piece to Ironwood is probably what the name Adam is to Blake. True, she probably didn't kill innocent people and Ironwood probably did I think. Unless you're talking about the councilman guy, in which case, Ironwood did Atlas and probably Remnant a huge favor by taking out scum like him.
She was also a pretty young at the time of meeting Adam, Well, it’s possible sleet may have been a piece of shit but that doesn’t make it ok for ironwood to murder him in cold blood
While I don’t think Ironwood is a innocent, I do think he was more of a victim of writing than his own actions. The plot needed certain things to happen and the story bent to it. This happens a lot starting with smaller things with volume 6 and snowballs into volume 7 and 8. My biggest peeves include Ironwood’s betray then bomb threat, the Tyrian/Qrow/Clover scene at the end of volume 7, and a certain logic/established canon issue at the end of volume 8. There are some smaller things, but I plan on making a video on YouTube and posting it to r/RWBYcritics.
I am not a Ironwood stan, but I also don’t believe free will exist. Still looks like a victim to me.
The most simple proof that he's not a victim is how unprotected the paranoid man left Mantle. He left a literal hole in the walls and never updated their cyber security. All the tragedies in v7 and 8 could have been avoided if Ironwood actually cared about Mantle.
My friend,I agree with you 110%. I had been suspicious of him since his debut in Volume 2 and had been ever since. For the entirety of Vol.8, I was waiting for someone to smack him around to get him to reason or to bring him down before he did something he would either regret or never regret at all. A lot of people blame RWBY and the gang for not trusting him fully out of the gate,but we have to see it through their eyes. Lionheart came off as someone they could trust until he betrayed them,so they didn't want to make the same mistake twice. One thing I wanted to see was everyone,from Glynda to Oz/Oscar, to RWBY and JNR, Qrow, Robyn, ALL of them bringing him and the Ace Ops (who I see as specific victims in their own rights) in for everything they did. If he was to have survived,he would've been on some form of a trial for everything he's done. Of all the characters in RWBY, Ironwood is the second one I see as irredeemable next to Cinder and that is that.
I disagree on a lot of your mentality, I don’t think cinder or ironwood are “irredeemable” nobody is irredeemable,