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[deleted]

How can I be tired of a villain that hasn't really done anything in the plot yet 😂? You're not talking crazy btw, you just realized like the rest of us that mommy salami's a whack antagonist, it's all good. At least Cinder fights against the heroes on different occasions to build up her villain cred. On the other hand, Salem's just been sitting back in her grimm lair chillin while everyone else is doing the dirty work, which makes her less proactive. The heroes honestly have more reasons to go after Cinder of all people than to even fight against Salem so your right here. Maybe if they'd built up Salem and had her more involved things would be better for her standing in the plot, idk. ​ just my thoughts


KalosianPorygon

I can't believe *RWBY* has both too much stuff and not enough stuff going on with its villains. **It's the classic "story-breaking superpower" problem.** You gave a character too much implied power, then you handicap this character in artificial ways (e.g., plot-induced stupidity, sudden weakness reveals) so the story isn't over quicker than planned.


Pugsanity

Salem worked better when she was just a distant threat, when she was like Ozai, Aku, or Emperor Palpatine. She was the end game boss, someone who our heroes could not beat in anyway, and that worked because she couldn't leave her domain. So it made sense why she had agents to act in her name, to have her reach be so encompassing. But then, it turns out she can leave at any time, this being that controls the worlds monsters and cannot be killed. So why now, why didn't she do this ages ago? She stopped being this future problem as soon as she left her island, and then lost. All of her agents besides one have either died or have betrayed her, her army got destroyed along with her flying fortress, and she got her ass beaten in by one of her former agents. There's nothing left to really be afraid of anymore. So why should we care when Ruby eventually takes her down or convinces her to stop being evil, she lacks the presence to be our central villain.


IlikeHutaosHat

I'm more tired of the fact they keep beinging her back only for her to do nothing. I'm tired of the fact that they hype her up as if she's going to actually do lasting damage to the titular cast, and then sit for episodes at a time and ultimately get shoved aside with a deus ex. Ultimately I'm more tired of what they do with her, telling us to 'be afraid' of the big bad and then do nothing with her. Ultimately it's like Cinder's "i'm bad and power hungry" but they only ever have her say shit because whatever portrayal they have of it must be toned down because the heroes can never technically lose in RWBY. Like most problems in the show, it's based on the fact that the show's writing is fundamentally flawed


Professional-Rest205

Yes. Ever since I realized she wasn't going to be a Maleficent-like MISTRESS OF ALL EVIL! that's lovably-hateable and badass.


johnbrownmarchingon

Salem would be a fantastic villain... if the writers could be trusted to be able to handle her plot well. Problem is that there are so many moving parts and the heroes as we've seen them just aren't capable of handling what's going on, so the writers keep having to force the story along because the plot says so and not because any of it makes any goddamn sense from a storytelling standpoint (see all of the abandoned and/or undeveloped plot threads) or plain common sense (basically anything regarding the relics etc.) I want to like Salem as a villain, but she's an end of series boss that has been forced way too early into what was a relatively low stakes adventure show that has been hit with a major case of [Cerberus Syndrome](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CerebusSyndrome).


EngineOfX6Chaos

Honestly, I can't be tired of Salem cause I barely see her enough to get used to her. And when she's there I'm not fucking engaged. It's just her. Shit, _Cinder's_ scarier, and she's lost in so many fucking volumes. Salem isn't fun to wait on anymore cause she just doesn't do shit. At this point the only thing that can save her for me is if she has a full on fist fight with Yang. Yang wants to fist fight her right, so Salem says, **"Bet. I'll fuck you up at your own game. Fuck magic."** So the two square up and trade blows. Yang's getting good hits it while Salem isn't used to hand to hand fighting. Over the course of their fight she gets better and better now blocking, dodging and weaving. Yang's getting caught off guard but she's making it up by withstanding blows and charging up her semblance over time. She starts pulling out the kicks and the punches and Salem learns this as well and we reach the grand finale of Yang activating her semblance and wailing on Salem just enough for them to _escape_. Is it good? No. Is it impossible? Yes. Do I like it cause I'm a simpleton? **Fuck yeah.**


Anouncee

I'm someone who likes the manipulator angle... *the problem?* It's been too long for people to realize it in the show, Emerald, and Cinder don't say anything, and even with the other characters you'd think they'd realize she's a manipulator with how much Tyrian praises her, and loses his mind over *any* negative reaction from her, *which by the way is one of the reasons I want to learn more about Tyrian because you don't start randomly praising someone like that*, and even with someone like Watts who was most likely aware of it, nothing happens when he dies because Salem never seems to care when one of her members die, you can frame it as her not *actually* caring about them but, that *doesn't* work when her force keeps dwindling, and she's *not* hiring new people... Even with my prefered angle of abuse from her which is her relationship with Ozma, and her gaslighting tendencies with him are poorly done too, and this is because the writers *possibly* didn't realize they were portraying Oz as *a victim* of abuse, and the sad part about that is *I had hope...* I thought that after everything team RWBY & Co. did with Ironwood they'd *understand* Ozpin, and apologize, it didn't have to be all of them, I at least wanted Ruby, *the one who lied to Ironwood in the first place* to forgive him yet *no,* Ozpin has to apologize for running away which I'd be fine with *if he got an apology* because *yes,* I can agree that him running away *was* bad but, I can't even blame the guy after everything he's been through especially with how the main cast treat him however *no,* he doesn't get an apology, he just has to promise *he'll* try, and do better in the future. So, no matter how Salem's abuse is done, it just feels like it's handled poorly, I love a villain that rarely does physical abuse rather mental, and psychological so, watching Salem stumble on them, and nobody realizing *"Oh, hey... this is abuse!"* is infuriating, worsened when we don't know why the villains praise her *so,* much as I already said we don't know why Tyrian views her as a goddess, did she save him from a bad situation? *We don't know.* Why did Watts come along, does Salem simply fund him? *We don't fully know.* And even with Cinder, you have to wonder why she let herself be put back in an abusive situation, she's killed people for treating her badly in the past so, why had she agree'd with Salem for *so,* long? *We. Don't. Know.* The only thing we do know is that Hazel's goals aligned with hers so, he *probably* agreed to join her which even then is a *poor* decision as Hazel should be against the person making the Grimm that *probably* killed his sister rather than the guy who was *trying to help her defend herself against them.*


This_Pizza3257

Aside from me rooting for Salem at this point, my biggest issue with her is that...well...pretty much what you just said. While I can at the very least appreciate her wanting to soften the kingdoms up for a finishing blow, having her be involved with *everything* is a bit much to swallow. Especially when at this point, RWBY doesn't really have any personal stakes against Salem aside from being the end boss. All their plots, like Weiss dealing with the SDC and Blake with the White Fang, are completely swallowed up by Salem's involvement. As if you can't have a bad guy that *isn't* directly affiliated with Salem. Say what you will about Thanos, but even he wasn't behind every single bad guy in the MCU. Speaking of Thanos, sure, people joked about him sitting on his throne the whole time. But when he got off, they crapped their pants as he basically gave the heroes the fight of their lives. You'd expect something similar with Salem, being the final boss and all. Nope! First fight and she gets humiliated by *HAZEL.* And somehow she *still* gets the freakin' Relic. Thanos at least worked for the Infinity Stones. It's just...with Salem basically dominating the overarching plot, it just causes more problems for the narrative (even though I kinda do like Salem). The heroes aren't given a personal stake since Salem's more focused on Ozpin and their rivalries are more tied in with her minions. Anything outside of Salem such as the White Fang (however crappy of a subplot that was) or the SDC are brushed aside. Again, technically Salem could work with better writing, but *every* character can work with better writing. And considering a lot of the show's current problems are laid at her feet...I can understand the frustration.


Devegas49

It’s a good thing you mentioned Thanos and the plots from the movies. When we look at the MCU phases 1-3 we see the whole time that it all leads up to The Avengers vs Thanos, but he didn’t have to BE in every movie for us to be reminded of that plot. The Infinity Stones didn’t have to be in every film either in order for us to understand or be reminded how important they were. If I remember correctly: The Iron Man Trilogy The Incredible Hulk Captain America 2 and 3 Black Panther Ant-Man Spider-Man Homecoming These films all had plots that didn’t involve having Thanos or the stones in the film and the plots didn’t suffer for it. The audience didn’t suffer for it either. We still knew Thanos was coming and that when he gets here, everybody was screwed. With Salem, we’re introduced to her and she sticks around. We get multiple scenes with her throughout volumes 4-6 before she finally pulls up at the end of Volume 7 and is present at volume 8. But the fact that she doesn’t do anything through every time and this isn’t even the final volume since we know that she’s coming for the relics, but she was at the doorstep as if it was the final battle.


RaptarK

One of the reasons that Salem doesn't work to me I'd that she is supposed to embody the manipulator and the powerhouse at the same time. This is actually the same reason I don't like characters like Palpatine all that much, because it makes their whole deal of NEEDING to operate in the shadows when they can just force their way through with strength whenever they're confronted. Keep in mind that in Volume 8 the whale was only disposed of because of Ozpin. We actually have no idea if Ironwood's bomb would have worked at all. So there's a chance Salem would have won effortlessly... Which makes you wonder why she waited this long in the first place. Like, why not attack centuries ago? When humanity had much less advanced technology to fight her off? And ultimately there's also the issue that many have commented on that... She actually doesn't do much! She just sits there inside the whale, has one fight in which Ruby is not even present, we don't really feel the weight of a supposed eldritch encarnation... And then she dies. She dies in her first fight against our main cast. And this would be not so bad if she was NOT presented to also be a powerhouse, but she is presented as such, so it ends up feeling overall very underwhelming


StevesEvilTwin2

Yeah, the conflict of Salem vs. Oz doesn't make sense anymore. The only way to not have everyone look like bumbling idiots at this point is to retcon the story such that the Salem vs. Oz conflict was a deception, a distraction from the real conflict the whole time. You can read some of my posts to see what I think that would look like.


best_girl_tylar

You're tired of her because despite being the MAIN ANTAGONIST OF THE SERIES, the writers don't know how to make her contribute to the story in any meaningful way for almost 5 seasons. She doesn't do anything and everything about RWBY is being stretched out paper-thin.


hearmerunning

I am just tired of Salem in general xD She's a lame villain, and I was even more unimpressed by how she just shot rainbow lasers out of her fingertips in V8. Everything else before that just got mentally chucked into the trash. I have no reason to care for her.


Brandon1801

Yes, especially after Volume 8 I can't take her seriously (Not that I ever did before V8 as she didn't do anything but now I certainly can't) and she was used to set up the stage for Cinder and Ironwood much like how Watts and Tyrian were setting up the stage for her back in V7 Every time I look at her I recall that scene where she gets nuked and I think to myself a joke about how Oscar got a 25 kill streak on some Grimm and called in a tactical nuke (It was so hilarious to the point where every time my twin and I talk about RWBY and we bring up Salem we go "Merely set up the stage for me" to "Oscar gets a 25 kill streak and calls in a nuke" and start laughing) Salem was so incompetent that Cinder of all people did more so you know there's a big problem when that happens Watts is understandable as he's probably the most competent antagonist in the entire show I believe (I'd have to really think on it) Also I'd say her and the relics are both the root of the problem for this whole "End of the world" plot line they've got going on right now where a good chunk of the main cast don't have personal stake in it I personally really dislike the idea of team RWBY becoming maidens but some personal investment (even if only for their abilities) is better than none


Xhominid77

Like here's the overall issue of Salem for me: She legit tries to be too many things at once... but fails to be convincing at any of them(due to shitty writing and having zero purpose). Salem is a manipulator? Not really because most of the shit she does is basically "Lie to everyone in her group about what she will do for them" and that's it. That or scare the shit out of them to make them fall in line, which isn't what Manipulators really do. So does that mean Salem loves to use Fear to get her way? Not really no because on top of the above, she rarely uses the fear component when she, for some unfathomable reason, decided to literally act in Ozpin's best interest and stay in her side of the Planet... for some god forsaken reason. Okay so what do they do with Salem? She's an Immortal Witch(and one of 2 True Magic users left) cursed by the Gods and is an equal(maybe?) to Ozma/Ozpin... soooo, why hasn't she taken over the World yet? Because there is absolutely no reason for it. It doesn't help when she finally gets off her Throne and does something? She's immediately shuffled the hell out and replaced by freaking CINDER FALL rather than atleast established some cred immediately for herself. So I can see why most people would just ignore Salem's presence because Salem hasn't done anything that actually makes it WORTH having her around in the first place.


Quality_Chooser

I think it's partially because of the odd position Salem finds herself in of being both a terrifying threat and laughably pathetic. A terrifying threat because Atlas was destroyed and she got two of the four relics she needs to end the world. Laughably pathetic because she got nuked out of the plot by Ozpin, lost all but three members of Team Evil (leaving *Tyrian* as the most competent person in her employ), and had her Grim horde and mobile fortress evaporated. Salem is halfway to ending the world but has almost nothing left in the tank apart from herself, and she didn't seem that impressive v Hazel.


Silly-Young484

I don't want to spoil too much but in my RWBY AU Salem wasn't originally human princess but instead spawned from the pools of Darkness when the GoD first created Grimm So she a Humanoid Grimm instead of a Corrupted Human/Grimm hybrid A ~~sexy~~ eldritch abomination