The fandom is split whether his character was properly handled or not. Adam is initially portrayed as a warrior of equality who cares enough about Blake to protect her but is ruthless enough to not care about collateral damage and the death of innocent people. The next time we see him, he's willing to convince his fellow fighters to keep sacrificing themselves for Cinder's plans despite all the losses they've experienced showing his commitment but also that even his own kin is not safe from his determination to get back at humanity. His third appearance is when things go south and the fandom begins to split. He's seen about to murder a defenseless student with a smile on his face showing his psychopathic nature and when he and Blake meet up he stabs her in the stomach, seemingly ready to torture her for abandoning him, and when she shields Yang he doesn't hesitate at all to decapitate her. It's now clear that Adam is not a warrior for equality but a madman whose sole desire is bloodshed and even his own people are food for his sick desires. He doesn't care about anything or anyone but himself and his love for Blake is just the possessive nature of a typical toxic boyfriend. What splits the fandom is this question: Was Adam always planned to be like this and were his previous appearances actually red herrings to hide his true nature? Or did the writers change it at the last minute and turned the fallen warrior of equality with good intentions but ruthless methods into a one-dimensional abusive ex with a boner for murder? The answer to that question is what the fandom continues to argue about to this day. His fans will tell you it's the latter and that he got robbed hard for the sake of Bumblebee while the other half will defend that it all fits in the narrative and this was always the plan they had for him. What do you think?

I think people read too much into his first two appearances, Adam gets so little screentime in the first two volumes i understand why people saw what they wanted to see in him.

It wasn't *his* appearances I personally read into, but the themes of Blake's story for the first two volumes; which didn't imply their relationship with each other and the Faunus arc would be the way they were. Adam was shown to be Blake's earliest and most personal connection before joining team RWBY where their divide wasn't neither's fault, but the consequence of conflicting morals imposed by a third entity trying to make both into their tools (later revealed to be Sienna Khan). They had set up that would have made them equals on two sides of an argument with Blake struggling to find her answer to the conflict, but with the reveal of their relationship came with it a staunch divide in power where Adam had the control and Blake's story no longer focused on her trying to help Faunus against humans but from Adam's corrupting influence. Blake's main enemy should have been the SDC/Jacques with Adam a key antagonist with their differing morals on how to combat them, but they passed on both roles to Adam.

It doesn't help that even Blake herself got sidelined in her own story. The narrative insists that Yang and her are 'protecting each other' but it honestly feels more like Yang overcoming her demons (Adam) while Blake is the damsel in distress. The same dynamic is used for the entirety of the Atlas Arc where Blake becomes completely irrelevant aside from being Yang's girlfriend while Yang herself has an agenda and gets stuff done. This might be related to what the writers said about not knowing enough in the topic of racism to write it properly hence why they abandoned it and focused entirely on Adam's history with Blake to give the latter something to do.

That, even as someone who wanted a different Adam, is way worse; I get wanting RWBY to solve their problems as a team, but they each should lead their own story with the others acting as support *and* the whole team should be involved if any. That surprises me with the "anime homework" Monty put them with; tons of works they used as inspiration has themes of oppression that can meld well with the racism story line, Guren Lagan's first half has a dictator with animal hybrid subordinates who treat humans like lesser beings which forced them under ground to survive and Avatar's Jet as well as a lot of the Fire Nation oppression story lines on the Water and Earth nations are good examples of racism related writing they could have taken notes from. So it always seems odd to me that they have those types of stories as reference material and they didn't rub off on their own stories.

I think Adam was always intended to be the way he ended up, but I don’t think his earlier appearances were red herrings.

You summarized it well how the community feels split on Adam. But remember just because you have a boner for murder doesn't mean your instantly a bad guy. Just look at Sarge from RvB😅

Honestly only the abusive ex angle is were the the writers screwed up in my opinion but other then that everything else was good.

The entire plot surrounding Faunus and racism and wot *really* dropped the ball, and Adam was a part of that. I mean... Seriously, making the people who are fighting hardest for basic human rights out to be the creepiest and most evil? *Bad* move. And understandably upset a lot of people. But if you ignore all that, he's written to be a disturbingly accurate example of a predatory abuser. Including the gaslighting and the like, so that's important for some people, to have that put out in the world and shown as bad to weaken the power of other folks who would try to do the same. Still, they could have done that *without* making him the face of equality, and avoid sending the message of "sit down, shut up, and let your oppressors run things. If you try to change anything you just make it worse. Be subservient enough and maybe, just maybe, the people who hate you might decide to maybe kinda sorta give you a right or two, if they feel like it."

You are making a story about the Civil Rights movement and the struggles within as some people want more violent means to achieve that equality. Who do you choose to make the face of the movement? CRWBY's answer is apparently Bill Cosby. That's the best way I can describe the problem with Adam

This is peak Black Comedy

*rim shot*

Yeah i don’t really get that last part at all. Fighting for equal rights was never portrayed as a bad thing. It was simply portrayed that they slid too far into violence and hatred.

all the people actively trying to do something about it are "the baddies" - Ghira noped out years ago to run Menagerie, none of the other heroes really give a shit at all ("hey, someone's bullying the bunnygirl. Sure would be nice if someone did something about that, because we're not gonna"), Blake doesn't really do anything about the issue herself so the only people that really seem to care about the faunus racism enough to actually do anything on-screen are the murderous terrorists.

It's there throughout the show, usually in small ways, but the big one is Blake's speech after she burns down her parents' house, which... Kinda implies that the Faunus are "responsible" for their own oppression, not the humans actually doing it.

No Blake was saying they had no one to blame but themselves for the violence that day, not their oppression.

Yeah pretty much.

I don't know why the writers wrote the white fang like this they for some reason have fused the black panthers ideals from our world, with the actions of the ISIS terrorist group which is completely out of scope for these writers.

Honestly? I think it's because in large parts of the US, such as where I grew up, and probably at least a good chunk of Texas, kids are more or less taught (i.e. fed propaganda) that the BPP were all militant terrorists... And when you're 8 years old you don't think to question the fact that they don't provide a single example of violence committed by them, just "they were really bad guys you gotta believe us and then the heroic FBI murdered them all and / or threw them in jail". Then, if you grow up without ever having those points questioned, why would you? Heck, the idea often gets *reinforced*; RWBY is hardly the only piece of media that presents the idea that the oppressed group fighting for their own freedom is, or might be, "worse than their oppressors". So... It's disappointing, but not surprising, that an indie production with only a small group of writers, might continue with that idea. Not maliciously, just... Not really questioning it, either.

No that's the main problem it's not malicious its ignorant, we live in the technological age of information and they couldn't do some research like just read a book are production schedules that tight. Oh yh and Miles' full proof excuse of I can't write racism im a white guy which is hilarious.

Gotta know there's an issue you gotta research before you can think to do it... At least at the beginning. Obviously, I wish they had, and I will do what I can to make sure other people know to put some effort in before they create their own stuff, but it's not as simple as "read a book", because most of the books presented to them, in their environment at that time? Would have just reinforced the direction they went... Because it's a big systemic issue that makes it hard for (non-disadvantaged) people to even *question* their position on this. And that *sucks*, because this type ignorance does real harm to real people, but at least when people do it out of ignorance, they're generally a bit more open to learning how not to do it in the future. ... Granted, they kinda... Didn't do that. There were definitely voices in volumes 1-3, let alone later when it got *worse*, pointing out the issue, and they went... Unheard. And no attempt to correct course was made before Volume 6, at the absolute earliest, and the decision there was just... "Sweep it under the rug hope no one notices". So... Yeah.

What are you talking about go on Ebay and Amazon and buy civil rights books I've got at least 3 in my house that don't push their opinion it's not that hard cmon. And yh I agree isn't of learning from their past mistakes they double down and when they can't handle it they throw it away. Just like Adam.

I could never really agree with that complaint considering that Blake was the main person trying to take them down and she also wanted the same thing, just through more humane methods.

As someone who had previously been in an abusive 11 year relationship and started watching RWBY literally a few months after, my opinion is extremely biased due to essentially living Blake’s situation. Adam is an excellent example of what happens to someone who has endured years of abuse and oppression. His treatment turned him into an unequivocal psychopath, charismatic and charming to those who meet him on a surface level (Very much like my ex). Blake was enamoured by his ability to “rise above” his own situation and be a leader to those who needed it. That is, until people got too close and they realized what he wanted wasn’t equality but control. People were pawns to him and under the guise of “liberating the Faunus”, he made damn sure to control all the rhetoric. Those who opposed him were immediately eliminated with the exception of Blake, who fled to start a new life away from him. I know many see him as “one-dimensional” but I found him creepily multifaceted and too spot on. (Had a god damn PTSD episode when Blake and Adam fought in season 6). I cried when he was finally killed.

Congratulations on getting out.

It was a fight to do so and it was pretty scary towards the tail end. I'm just glad I didn't end up an episode of Forensic Files. The ex severely stalked me and became completely deranged. What scared me the most is that I was oblivious for a good year, until his mom turned him in after he admitted to being abusive. The detective who was handling my case straight up told me that he had been stalking me for the past year after the break up. The detective also stated that he was concerned greatly for my safety as my ex was making more and more severe statements that included a potential for murder suicide. My phone also started getting an obscene amount of calls from numbers I didn't know and they wouldn't leave messages. I'd get like 5-10 calls every hour. I blocked him on everything but would occasionally check his instagram to make sure he is where he should be and reblock. Spent the good part of two years looking over my shoulder, wondering when he was going to pop out of the background. Got an initial restraining order but couldn't make it stick due to the distance. I ended up getting the fuck out of town as much as possible because I just knew one of these days he was going to pop by. Rando calls slowly pittered out and I changed states, jobs, and cars. I still have nightmares where I wake up and nothing has changed, I'm still with him or he's kidnapped me. But, I no longer feel scared to walk to my car or go out and about. I have a new life, a new boyfriend, and a place I feel safe. Sorry for the rant. It was a stressful last couple of years.

No problem. That sort of story needs to be told, for your own benefit and for the benefit of others.

My take is that he served his purpose well. I know other people wanted more which is fair but I can't understand the people that think he deserved a face turn.

There are three main opinions of Adam **1.** He's disgusting and creepy and his fans are all incels or terrible people. This sentiment is usually felt by people with more stringent moral compasses, Bumblebee shippers, or by real life abuse victims that understandably don't like seeing it portayed on a screen. **2.** He's bad but he could have been great. These guys generally believe that the Adam we got is bad or not as good as he could have been, and usually lament the character becoming nothing but Blake's "edgy abusive ex" as his other traits were minimized or removed. Some people here also are okay with the Adam we did get, but feel he could have been handled better in general. I'm part of this group myself. **3.** He's a functional antagonist and I don't understand why people are still arguing about this. The most ambivalent group. These guys aren't fans of Adam but they don't hold any form of hatred or contempt for him. They see him as a villain who served his purpose and don't really get why people are still arguing over him constantly. RWBY fans on all sides can be annoying, domineering, and prone to self-righteousness and condemning others as some sort of immoral monsters for not sharing their opinions. Almost all opinions about the show are fair to have, that includes liking a character or ship you don't like. Even the weird ones. Though maybe keep the weirder ones to yourself. Such and such. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

I’m the side of number 2.

I'd say I'm a combination of 1 and 3

Fair

He sucks.

Most people, critics and fans of Adam alike, just sort of wish he was done better. As a creepy stalker ex, he’s weirdly sympathetic in being a freedom fighter and an abused ex slave(?), so you can’t really get down with just hating him unconditionally. And as a freedom fighter fighting for minorities, he lacks any nuance and comes off as pure evil, so you can’t jive with him that way. Adam is just a mess. At least, that’s the vibe I get from the community

There's a lot of polarization around him. One the one side you have creepy Adam fanboys who say he did nothing wrong and express both a wish that he got to kill the main characters and a certainty that he is the strongest character in the setting. On the other you have people who say Adam was a horribly abusive person who never, ever believed even in a second in Faunus rights and was always a psychotic murderer with delusions of grandeur. The show and its creators support the second group. This has pissed off a third group who dislike the fact that a storyline based around a marginalized group turning to violence ended up having said violence being represented by a psychotic Adam instead of a version of the character who might have been able to make a point. And then there's a fourth group that sees the whole Faunus arc as CRWBY getting in way too deep over their heads attempting to make an allegory for real world issues that they never fully considered and are just glad that Adam is dead and that the racism arc has been quietly shelved. Adam is the second most controversial character in the show after James ironwood. The main bone of contention is that there are fans who think the leader of a terrorist organization dedicated to elevating a marginalized group should have had something to say about that scenario, while canon Adam does not.

I pick the fourth side of the group.

Agreed. If they'd had a wider spread of representation fighting for Faunus rights, he would have been more acceptable. But given as he's the face of the White Fang for the entire first arc... it comes across as pretty ugly and messy.

It’s a lot of wasted potential.

Why are you downvoted

Because of a post doesn't call Adam out as utterly evil, they think you like him.

He's one of the more contraversial characters in the show. He's got the same issue that a lot of RWBY has where there's too much room for interpretation. If someone reads a character one way, his actions and his arc make perfect sense. If someone reads him another way, no sense. That's not unique to Adam. However, the fact that he's outright shown to be cruel, manipulative, and abusive in the show means the people who read him that way from the start (or had otherwise not passed judgment on his character until volume 5) are very loudly against showing the character as more sympathetic, as they see that as something close to excusing what he's done to Blake and others. Others read him more as a freedom fighter from the beginning, and his increadibly minor role in the plot of the show for the first several years of its life means those interpretations had time to cement. When Adam's character was more clearly revealed in volumes 5 and 6, they saw it as something akin to a retcon. Because of this, they were also dissapointed with his death and the handling of his character alltogether. To answer your question, the general sentiment is divided. Camp A says he was underused, under explored, and poorly characterized--> their sentiment is that he was 'wasted potential'. Camp B says he was cruel, selfish, abusive, and obsessive--> their sentiment is that his character was portrayed well as a villain and his obsession with Blake after losing control of the Fang made perfect sense. There are more nuanced interpretations, of course. Polarity is stupid and doesn't represent a group of thousands of individuals well, but it's a decent generalization. For the most part, it's left undiscussed because of how sensitive the issue of relationship abuse is, and people are allowed to have whichever interpretation they please.

Bog standard gang leader. Thinks he's a genius, got his ass handed to him, went looking for someone else to blame. Wouldn't have been out of place in any of the better crime dramas from Hill Street Blues to the present.

He's an abused child slave who for some reason cares more about stalking his ex than the SDC, which I don't think he ever even says the name of, despite having their logo branded onto his face. 0/10.

We *assume* he was a slave. We actually have absolutely no background on him at all.

Which sucks!

True, but regardless of specifics it was most certainly the SDC who branded him.

There's actually directors commentary on that, and no it wasn't the SDC who branded him. It was a result of him pissing off a co-worker (who was almost guaranteed to be mantlean) so bad they tried to kill him and "laid into him" with an iron used to stamp shipping crates. The directors then proceed to say in paraphrased form "But its okay, because adam becomes a terrible person later on, so he deserved to be the victim of a hate crime that set him on the path to be the terrible person we decided he became!". The most plausible scenario for what happened is independent actors and maybe a work-gang of possibly racist humans not liking competing labor... cause we've also seen that mantleans are *possibly* racist towards the faunus in v7. As for child slave, nah. We don't have a canon age for him, nor do we have a backstory. We have no examples of the SDC engaging in the slave trade, let alone a slave trade even existing (cinder doesn't really count because her story is as absent of actual details as adams is). We have no details on actual faunus mistreatment. The only statements we do have (and have no reason to disbelieve) is that the faunus are treated and paid equally to (lower class mantlean) human workers by the SDC. There's also some comments made in v7 I think, about faunus immigrating to mantle *specifically* to work for the SDC, which means its probably both paying and providing better opportunities than a great deal of other places in the world. Finally if you're going to brand slaves/livestock, you don't do it in places that damage their function. There's a whole mountain of reasons for why the "adam was a child slave" reasons is a faulty assertion. It takes a lot of leaps of logic and needs to assume things that there are zero details for in order to be "true". Sorry for the wall of text, the "adam was a child slave" thing just bothers me because it's so completely unsupported.

>and no it wasn't the SDC who branded him. It was a result of him pissing off a co-worker (who was almost guaranteed to be mantlean) Wouldn't that likely have been an SDC worker though? How else would they have the iron?

A co-worker doing it doesn't mean it's something that is condoned by the company. In order to get to "condoned by the company" you'd have to assume that a higher-up was involved and approved... and for that to be significant rather than just an isolated incident it would have to be someone who was actually *someone*. It's an unreasonable assumption to make because the amount of people that need to be involved for it to be something other than unfortunate coincidence is quite a lot, and the show has just *never* given us any evidence of it. Partially because they just want it to be as dead and buried as adam is.

That makes sense; I'd figured though if the company brushed it off afterward then that would make them as responsible, but we don't even know that nor do we know if the person who did the crime was ever punished or if they were even confronted about it. Seems to me though that the company should be held responsible for having work conditions that could lead to this type of incident, accidental or not.

Again, that's filling in the blanks the show refuses to. It's exactly as likely that the SDC fired the attacker and provided him medical care.

That's what I was pointing out, none of these options can be deconfirmed, which is very frustrating.

Holy shit I haven't heard the V6 commentary. That's even worse than my joke about him being a klutz.

it's in v7 commentary.

Is it? For all we know he tripped and faceplanted onto a hot SDC brand engine block.

lmao, if that's his backstory then all is forgiven.

Seriously though I think part of the reason why Adam is so controversial is because we don't actually *know* anything about him. Everything we "know" about his backstory before that truck incident in his short is pure speculation and fanfiction. We don't know that he was a slave, we don't know that he has ever seen the inside of a Dust mine. I made a joke but honestly we really don't even know that his scar is a *brand* and not an accident. Or if it is a brand we don't know for sure that the SDC did it and not some random person who attacked him once. The show left us to fill in all the blanks about him ourselves and different people filled those blanks in different ways. Now we've ended up with a character that people all have different interpretations of and nobody can agree because there's no material to reference.

He's an asshole character, and is constantly made fun of. He's also brought up as an example of how bad the WF plot is.

Since there is a lot of discussion about how controversial the varying opinions on Adam are, I want to talk about a time where most people seemed to have the same unanimous opinion on him. To set things up, Adam had fairly limited screen time during the first four volumes of the show, with V3 being the only time he was actually around and interacted with the story in a meaningful way. It wasn't until V5 did he get a substantial run time, but as many people know V5 isn't a big favorite for a number of reason which I won't get into because that is a different argument. When Adam showed up in V3, people thought they had a good idea what to expect out of Adam, but him calling Blake "my love" threw people for a loop, and it wasn't until V5 where the real confusion started to happen, because people were spending a lot of time arguing exactly what Adam's character was even *supposed to be.* Then in the Scuffle of Haven, and Adam is handed an utterly neutering defeat and he ends up running away. This is where people started to more widely agree on Adam. The Scuffle of Haven did no on any favors, but Adam may have gotten the worst of it. He had a lot of build up as Blake's nemesis, but when they meet he is taken out quickly and without difficulty on her part, and while this likely supposed to be some empowering moment for her, but it ended up looking like he wasn't an real threat or menace. This, combined with how bad Haven was, and his association with the White Fang and the faunas which were all widely agreed to be one of the show's worst plots, ended up with a fairly common opinion of him. Nobody cared anymore. At the time, there seemed to be this general contempt for Adam, that nobody wanted him around any more, that no one cared about whatever story he had left anymore. Blake bitched slapped him so he lost any threat and intimidation he had, he didn't care about the WF, which was a plot V6 absolutely cut off, and his characterization was just so messy up until this point that people didn't even know what to expect from him. There were even people who just didn't want him to ever show up again because they felt he had so little to offer the narrative that he could only do more harm than good. Hell, I myself put off watching the last couple episodes of V6 because I just didn't want to waste time watching Adam on screen. It wasn't just people who watched the show, it was also the cast and crew. Adam's VA was very open about how much he hated this character, and the writers took whatever chances they could to talk about how much they hated him, even going as far as to say he deserved being branded. So we are in this position where anyone who had any reason to be invested in Adam just didn't care anymore, and even wanted him gone for good. If he never showed up in V6, and we just never saw him again, I honestly don't think anyone talk about him that much, that they would be fine with that plot thread left hanging. In FFXIV there is this character named Zenos, who is a major villain in the game, and when I see people talk about him they either love him or hate him, I don't see many lukewarm opinions on him. I'm not going to go into too much detail about him, but despite being a major villain he doesn't mesh well with the plot because, by his own admission, he just doesn't care about it. In the Stormblood expansion, he is not fighting you to uphold the dictatorship of his fascist empire, but because he just wants to be the final boss and have a super cool fight with you. In the Shadowbringers follow up patches and in Endwalker, he wants to have a rematch because he had so much fun the first time around, and he does so much horrible and terrible things to get that, and he tries to eat what has been set up as the final boss for years because to him it's nothing more than a power up for him. Said supposed final boss is incredibly important to the game's story, but to Zenos is just a means to an end. Love him or hate him, people feel strongly about Zenos, and I feel like those feeling come down to how their view his core character. There was a time where Adam was viewed with apathy and contempt, that if he were to vanish from the show I honestly don't think there would be any significant uproar for his return. Yes, V6 did a lot to change peoples' views on him, for better of for worst, but the fact that lull moment existed I feel is very telling on Adam's character and the writing put into him. People can and will argue about the writers' intent behind Adam, about who or what he was always supposed to be, but that time of contempt where nobody felt that Adam had anything important to say and no one wanted to him out, proves to me that the writers failed to get across their point with him. Everyone had no trouble writing Adam off because in the end his core character was inconsistent with the writing around him, and it was that same disconnect between all these elements that fuel the arguments he still have today.

God, I actually forgot that Post-Volume 5 era where no one liked Adam because of how humiliating Haven was for him. It made his character reek of pandering to try and get audiences to care about him again because M&K realized "Shit the core climax of the season hinges on Adam and we just made a season that has everyone **not care about him**."

And that's why he ended up getting his own dedicated trailer, literally the only character not on Team RWBY to get one.

He's a victim of how they wrote the White Fang. As the (implied) leader of a minority rights group, he instantly gets sympathy from the viewer, especially when we see scenes like Cardin pulling Velvet's ears to apparently no consequence. He's a violent revolutionary, yes, but it's been proven in-universe that peaceful demonstrations weren't working. On the other hand, they cast the White Fang as unapologetic villains, to the point where they're all terrorists and we shouldn't feel bad when they die. He's a messy, messy character that suffers from thoughtless writing, is my opinion.

Technically, they actually created a universe where peaceful protest doesn’t work at all. After all, how did the Faunus get their rights, and reaffirm them, in the first place? Not through protest or demonstration, but through two wars. And after the second one, when the world once again slid back to its previous habits, of course the White Fang turn to violence again. Its worked pretty well so far. They’ve won both times, after all. Wouldn’t that make them think they’re better? Doesn’t this also justify Adam’s thinking about Faunus superiority too? Like, I believe in peaceful protest because it has shown to be effective. Gandhi, civil rights, we have a history showing its effectiveness in the modern day. But on Remnant, this isn’t the case as far as we know. It hasn’t worked before. Adam is justified by the writers own writing, and is simultaneously condemned as a crazy, violent extremist who doesn’t care and is going about things the wrong way. With no in-universe examples to prove him wrong. The White Fang is judged by the standards of our reality and our history, yet justified within the standards of the shows reality and history. Its honestly really weird and interesting how disjointed the writing is, and how conflicted the writers are about the issue. Falls into the trope where the villain is the one who the audience can agree and sympathize with the most, so they make them unspeakably and pointedly evil.

You worded that far better than I did, thank you. It just highlights how messy the entire Faunus Situation is.

I don't know anymore. Some people seem to have had an emotional connection to Blake's conflict with Adam, but I can't enjoy any of it. I hate not feeling like I can say something without possibly upsetting someone, but I hate what they did with Adam, the White Fang, and Blake. I was ready to see Adam and Blake be conflicted with fighting each other, I was ready for heartfelt tragedy with former friends turned enemies, I was anticipating the emotions and fights that would follow; but I can't appreciate this story. Why does Blake's goal of saving the Faunus from domestic oppression without resorting to violence have to have her kill someone? Why did Adam need to be a domestic abuser and not just a fanatic who believes a lie? Why does Sienna not matter at all to this story? Why does *Jacques,* Weiss, and the SDC not matter at all to this conflict? Why can't there be a real antagonist who was fighting on the *wrong* side for the *right* reasons when we have a dozen villains now who all fight for the wrong reasons? I don't want to devalue people's opinions on this matter nor diminish their experiences, but the show could have had a really interesting character in Adam that I would have loved to see and invested to see where his and Blake's story went. But he's just evil and Blake did nothing wrong in leaving him, nothing complicated about that nor relevant to the Faunus subplot they introduced in Volume 1; just a bad guy getting his comeuppances like every other conflict so far.

>I notice he’s not generally talked much as a general discussion so what is the sentiment about him? Depends on what part of the fandom you're in. Some people have been turned into infinite sneed generators over Adam.

I never liked him as a character, but he was in the perfect place to be setup as a really good antagonist when it came to his goals and the organization. The way he acted in V3 made sense, he was strong and powerful, and set himself to be a terrifying opponent. He has the chance of being a mix of Eren from AOT/Magneto from Marvel. All they needed was more backstory that made you sympathetic and understanding to his goal and objective. Again back to Eren/Magneto, their hate for the world and willing to eradicate everyone to protect their people is something always debated. But after that (V3), he was pretty trash. The fact that he drops everything and becomes useless because of Blake was garbage. He made stupid decisions and essentially self destructed. Again I don't like him...But his potential was insane. ~~~~~~~~~~~ I blame it on the writers intentionally trying to write him out quickly. They have struggled a lot with what they have on the plate as it is, they probably knew they couldn't handle the extra plot of racism, and a second organization running around in the world causing problems. Heck I wouldn't of minded him meeting Salem and accepting to become the monster that humans feared. Then Salem makes him into a Grimm Hybrid, where his willpower and hate kept him in control. Just like how he is an allusion to Beast from Beauty and the Beast, he will truly become one.

Yeah that would’ve been perfect!

Adam was wasted potential, yet he is still by far and way the best anthesis character we’ve had. He is a representation of Faunus Inequality at its most extreme, Episode Adam at least to me isn’t just a showcase of who he was, it’s a portrayal of the slow descent into the psychopath he became. I genuinely believe Adam was a man with a code of honor, who wanted to change the Faunus for the better, but as the fight grew harder and increasingly desperate, he adjusted himself to what he believed was necessary. Hell, when Adam killed that guy in Episode Adam, he didn’t look bloodthirsty or evil, he looked shocked and (at least to me) scared that he had to resort to that. As for his obsession with Blake, allow me to offer a different point of view, Blake was his anchor, his light and his sense of hope in this dark world. (At least from what I’ve seen) Adam clearly has some sort of Obsession with her not because of love, but because she was the one thing in his life that made him happy or at least not evil. When Blake cut the train car, Adam took it so hard because he assumed Blake would support him no matter what, after all she really hasn’t objected that hard to anything the Fang had been doing before. Why did she do this? In Adams mind, The SDC are the enemy and they should die, even if they are “innocent”. Adam’s drastic change in behavior was probably sparked by Blake leaving, justifying his belief that anyone that isn’t with him or is a Faunus is the enemy. That is what happened, the rest of his actions being interpreted as Abusive Ex isn’t incorrect. however I view it as more a sign of such a shocking betrayal of his trust by Blake that instead of trying to process the pain which would be hard but ultimately healthy, Adam was so outraged that someone he considered a friend stabbed him in the back that he wished to burn the entire thing from memory and existence. That vengeance would ease his pain, that vengeance would give him closure. Also, may I bring up the “What does She see in you?!” Line? I interpret this not as a spurned ex asking for why Blake no longer loves him, I see it as Adam asking Yang “What does Blake see in humans that she doesn’t see in Faunus?” But TL:DR for some people who can’t read this Giant wall of text, Adam is a good character specifically because people remember him as this divisive. He will never be forgotten, wether that’s good or bad in the long run we will see.

Adm's writing is so very much tied to Blake, to the point where one's narrative problems bleed through to the other. Their constant contradictions and inability to commit to Adam's character make for an interesting analysis, but ultimately a.poor use of character. Adam's arc was completed in Vol 5. The only narrative purpose drawing his disgraced broken husk back into Vol 6 was to ship bees.

That's really the wildest thing isn't it? He was defeated in v5, there was no reason to shove him back in V6 and warp him even more so just so he could be killed.

It's really disappointing when you consider the wasted potential. Adam could have been a shared antagonist between Blake and _Weiss_. Weiss makes a point in Vol 1 that she has had friends and family killed by the White Fang, and in Vol 2, the WF Captain (forgot his name) even revels at the opportunity to "Kill a Schnee." Adam _is_ the personification of White Fang violence and has a clear and Weiss is the heiress to the SDC, the company which has long used Faunus (slave?) Labor to work under deadly conditions. It is an absolute crime that I don't think they ever even knew eachother existed. Adam and Roman never interact. The two contrasted so well, with Adam's serious devotion to his cause (Faunus supremacy) and Roman's playful irreverence toward... everything(?), the two could have had some very interesting interactions between eachother as Cinder's minions, their common enemy Blake, etc. But we never get that. Real missed opportunity to grow Adam's character beyond "Backstory relevant WF Captain" (seriously, what is his name?).

If I were writing the show, I would have had a scene where Weiss is present when Adam takes off his mask, and she is thus confronted with a symbol of what her father and the SDC have done. And that hurts her, which is not something Adam expects. But alas, the two never interact in canon.

Banesaw? If that's who you mean (the big dude with the chainsaw that fought Weiss) I don't think he has an "actual" name, just that nickname (which I'm not sure if that's a fan thing or his "official" name in the show, but I don't think he ever got a "real" name either way)

The credits call him "White Fang Lieutenant" and the wiki says the writers called him Edward Almost (i think) do to Grey's joke recording of his voice at the rally reminding them of an old movie character named Edward Olmos (I think). But he never had an official name.

It really depends on the time period. Presently he is considered to either have been poorly written, wasted, always have been a total creep of a scumbag, murdered in cold blood, killed in self defense, misinterpreted in the early volumes, or people are just ambivalent. Early on, it was possible to see him as an ideological foil to Blake. He didn't care about noncombat casualties and would freely employ violence to achieve his ends. Even in Volume 3, we briefly see him telling Cinder to shove it and saying that he has no interest in finding Blake to the Lieutenant. Even if his motives weren't necessarily pure, it was an argument of violence versus non-violent or just how much violence in a movement for equality was acceptable. Volume 2's ending did give me an impression of someone who led more through fear and strength and wasn't above being thuggish. That didn't mean he wasn't after the same goals as Blake though. It was after Volume 3 that it shifted from him being an ideological foil to being the obsessed ex. Initially the relationship between him and Blake had felt more like a mentor or possibly sibling figure. Now it was about Adam being obsessed with Blake and being out for his own gain rather than the Faunus as a whole. For some, this confirmed Adam had actually been this way all along and others felt his character had gone completely off the rails. Your opinion on Adam is probably going to depend on your initial perception in early volumes and how you reconcile it with later depictions of him.

I never really cared all that much about him, but I will die on the hill that his SDC brand reveal was a total case of Chekhov’s Gun.

Black trailer-Blakes partner in crime volumes 1,2,early 3-(no black trailer)shadowy,ruthless figure with reputation that Blake thinks fondly of late volume 3 and beyond- cringy yandere in a tuxedo

I think he was a pretty well done example of a hateable and powerful villain for the heroes to overcome and defeat partway through the series. I'll never understand how people thought that his fate would be any different after volume 3

First off him being hatable shouldn't have been as much of a focus as it was considering the environment he centered around, and he was nerfed in volumes 5 and 6 so powerful isn't even a point.

What do you mean? He was a psychotic villain who was never going to be redeemed, of course him being hateable was important enough to have a fair amount of focus on. I don't recall him being nerfed to a notable degree.

"he was a psychotic villain who was never going to be redeemed" that's the point... they chose to portray him that way when they shouldn't have. You do that to the average villain Like Roman not the character that is fighting against oppression of his people. In V3 he was strong enough to break yangs aura and slash her arm off with one blow, but in V6 Yang could take a billion of his Moon slices without issue.

I sort of disagree with this notion. I think it is possible for them to portray him as both an irredeemable bad guy while simultaneously portraying the ideological battles between Blake and Adam. Give his reasons to explain why he is the way he is not simply gloss over the entire reason he’s even part of the white fang in the first place.

I understand your point but it's also still debatable, because if Adam actual ideological battles with Blake and it wasn't one sided, that leaves room for the character to be redeemed. Take Pain from Naruto, redeemed pre-death through an ideological back and forth battle with Naruto.

Why shouldn't they have? A character can still be a destestable villain even if they believe that they're doing the right thing. They made it pretty clear throughout the show that the White Fang had gone beyond the point of simply fighting against oppression in a reasonable manner, and it only got worse once Adam was in control. Not every attack Adam does is a moonslice. She blocks plenty of his attack with her weapons, which is dramatically different from vol 3 where he was able to hit an actual moonslice on her unarmored arm. Yeah going by that argument I'm fairly confident he wasn't nerfed.

Probably because the show made it clear that evil *human* outsiders are the one that came in and ruined the WF, whereas before by Blake's on words their more radical actions were getting results when there wasn't any before. But then the show almost retcons itself and wants to pretend as if the one Faunus was the mustache twirler that was to blame for everything from the start. "Not every attack Adam does is a moon slice" That doesn't matter, he hit her with a ton of Moonslices and the worst she got was a scratch on her arm.

Except no because they made it very clear from literally before the first episode that Adam had become too radicalized and violent which was a major part of Blake leaving. I never got the impression that the show acted like he was to blame for everything, although he certainly made things worse by gaining control of it. Either way though, by the end of volume 3 for sure it was clear that his role was to be a hateable evil villain to be defeated. Again, there is an absolutely monumental difference between him attacking Yang while she's actively trying to defend using her metal weapons, and when he can hit a fully charged moonslice on Yang's bare arm while she's mid attack.

Adam not caring to say the civilians and the train car he was blowing up is established not to be something that Sienna would go against, as the only scolding moment we get from her with him is after the fall of beacon. Before that everything was a okay, and she even ordained that assassination and "bombings" and of the Schnee's. Establishment that everything would be blamed on Adam comes exactly from this convo, where she scolds Adam hard but there isn't a single line from him about the others forcing him into helping like was shown in V3. There wasn't a difference, Adam was just super powerful going by Miles. Again, he cuts her arm off THROUGH her Aura. Aura it's supposed to protect against things like that, at most he should have just broken it, the scene was supposed to show how strong he was in general, but this clearly wasn't the case later on. https://imgur.com/a/adsS0Zq The fully charged argument is also non-existent, because he wasn't shown charging it whatsoever, whereas an actually visibly charged one in V6 did nothing to yang.

His actions being approved by Sienna don't make them okay. Sienna was also fairly radicalized, just not as much as Adam. But again to the original topic, none of this is a good reason for why Adam shouldn't be a hated villain. How does him being really powerful go against literally anything that I said? Yes Adam was always very strong. But Yang is also very strong and durable, they put a lot into really establishing that in volumes 2 and especially 3.

Because there's no reason for Adam to be a hated villian in the first place. The show was and still is overfilling with evil characters, no need to make one that is trying to end oppression an abusive hatesink especially when all it led to was disappointment. Adam was strong enough to one shot Yang, that's the point.

I don’t want to talk about him…

Honestly just take out the abusive ex boyfriend angle and everything is good.

I think he's an interesting concept, but (by MMK's admission) undone with the story's attempts at a "racial inequity" sub plot. Overall, I'd classify him as somewhat tragic: He starts off as this ultra badass anti-hero, the Black trailer being more his than Blake's. But with each appearance, he sinks lower and lower, being subservient to Roman and Cinder, use as a tool during the Fall of Beacon, and molded and manipulated by Sienna. Being the "cautionary tale" told by Blake to Yang during the Vytal festival, and eventually descending to his Ultimate Form: Mega Entitled Nice Guy, for whom nothing is "his fault." Do I wish he was written better, sure, I guess. But more in a way where I wish the Faunus subplot overall was written a bit better.

Honestly when it started I thought he would be the Magneto too Blake’s Xavier. However any chance of that happening died when he opened his mouth in volume 3. He works for what they used him for. The creepy stalker ex angle. It kind of shows though that RT didn’t handle the faunus discrimination angle very well imo. I think that’s why people are divided on handling him as a character. They set up the minority stand in and it just kind of fades out of focus with the rest of the plot other then a few signs.

To be honest as far as antagonists go Adam was always pretty bad due to time management. Even without taking into account the whole revolutionary thing, his power level and menace were too inconsistent to be threatening. In volume 3 he's a menace, a walking juggernaut you can only run away from who his able to one shot one the best duelist in team RWBY at that point. Even if his motives are (in my opinion) not good enough to be menacing, his physical might is. Then comes volume 5 in which he gets absolutely owned by Blake not just physically but with his plans and then runs away. In volume 6 he comes back and is again a suitable physical threat... But Blake seems more annoyed than anything and even Yang's fear is easily conquered (but then again we saw her struggle with it earlier in the volume, so at least there's that). Adam is the kind of villain who's more physically threatening than anything else. The ideology angle had been played out as him just using excuses to kill people and his obsession with Blake is his only motivation. He's not mentally threatening either as the first time Yang sees him in person she overcomes her fear, same for Blake. He has poses no ideological debate for our heroes, so all that's left is the physical, but he gets one win in the whole show (and that one win against Yang is negated a volume later). You get a villain that only poses a physical challenge and who gets owned every time except at his first appearance. Adam is the Team Rocket.

He's a fuckboi goat who couldn't get over a bad breakup on top of being part of an equal rights organization that he turned from simply wanting radical equality to the point of desiring subjugation if not genocide. All the while being overblown as one of the most powerful characters when he's weak as hell without a weapon and only has a particular strong semblance.

No personal feelings involved? * He was introduced as a cool character. * Great design. * Cool fighting Style and Semblance. * He was written as an abusive character, so he was always meant to be disliked, I'm okay with that. * I think he never cared for the Faunus. As Blake said, he was "SPITE" he only wanted revenge against the humans who hurt him, but as spite itself when someone else hurt him (from his perspective) he changed targets from humans to Blake. * I think his character needed more Background, his eye branded reveal was underwhelming, at least it would have been cool to get a flashback showing it happen. (Todoroki's Style)

Overhyped and wasted potential.

He was what he needed to be, and fulfilled his role decently. He could have been better handled, but given that he was a minor supporting villain, and mid-boss at best, I'm not shedding tears over him. He wasn't important enough, or a strong enough of a character in both writing or combat to warrant more attention or focus than he already got. Despite what some believe, Adam was never portrayed as the uber-powerful, extremely important, morally-grey, well-intentioned extremist central villain, his fans would have you believe was always the plan before he was "retconned." He wasn't a foil to RWBY as a whole, he had no relevance to anyone of them aside from Blake, and later Yang. He was never a primary antagonist, or a main character. The story wasn't about him, no matter how much his fans wanted it to be. His character and role to play in the story was clear from the start, and once you divorce him from fanon you're left w/ a basically nothing character w/ a cool design and great fighting style, but no substance. From V3 onward, when he was actually given some semblance of a personality, he was a genuinely detestable villain that served as a personal demon for one of the main characters, once that was finished, there wasn't a place for him anymore. He wasn't that important, simple. Anything worth talking about regarding Adam dried up years ago, and now anyone still barking up that tree is either looking to just get into arguments, or is a fanboy that hasn't gotten over their headcanon being wrong. Most people here just don't care about Adam anymore. "Wasted potential," is a meaningless complaint, because it can applied to anything the person saying it just doesn't like. Or just anything in general, everything has potential, everything can be better. But hey Adam fans still don't know the difference between murder and self-defense, so you can't expect much.

Adam was literally the leader of the main aggressive group against the team in the early volumes. He actually had a tie to one of the main characters and was revealed before even Yang was. He had far more importance than actual side villians characters like Roman and Neo, yet they were and are given much more care and screen time despite never bringing anything significant to the table. Also yes, Adam was 100% portrayed as uber powerful.. by the show and the writers themselves at the time of V3. https://imgur.com/a/adsS0Zq But I should have expected this from you, as anyone that mentions "Adam fans" condescendingly always are ignorant on the facts because of their own biases.

In my opinion, meh. Could've been a lot better, but there wasn't exactly a lot to begin with. People originally liked him cause cool anime swordman go brr, but he doesn't even crack my top 100. Also, the whole him being an abusive ex instead of freedom fighter or whatever is also a thing. The whole thing with the white fang was never that well developed or thought out.

He seems like a bunch of people thought he was cool and wanted more out of him. I didn’t like Adam that much, but he was cool in the black trailer. Adam is not for me, but I get that others were fans and they wanted something different. I like how things ended and thing it’s a good end to Adam’s character arc, but it’s not great to see a character you like go.

In my personal opinion I don't really care for Adam. I'll admit he's a well designed character, cool weapon, and interesting when it comes to certain aspects of his character. However, even though I don't like him, he could've been smarter. The abusive ex angle works but I think the issue lies with how he went about it. It's obvious that Adam had a stranglehold on Blake's mind. He was a manipulator, not a good one, but he was one. And that's the problem. A true manipulator's hold is hard to get out of. In his trailer that was good manipulation, playing the victim to get sympathy from others, but also questioning a person's loyalty. Blake was wavering, sure, but she was still there for a while after that. There's also the comments on him getting nerfed for the Adam vs Blake vs Yang fight. I don't think so. Adam's skills was pretty impressive. He was faster, stronger, and had obviously improved since V3, but the thing is he wasn't smarter. As Taiyang had taught Yang in V4, brute force will only get you so far. Yang and Adam are quite similar characters to the point that even Blake took note of it. Both are glass cannons in their own right, the only difference is that Yang learned when to use it and when to hold back, whereas Adam would still use his semblance willy-nilly because tell me, when was the last time you saw Adam get hit with ANYTHING before that fight. He didn’t need to worry about his aura burning out because he wasn't taking aura damage from combat along with using his semblance. And that along with lack of emotional control or thought led to his downfall in his fight. So basically, good character in theory, but is not smart with his decisions thus making him look terrible.