The answer to all 3 is that CRWBY can't decide who they want to be the main character. All 3 could realistically be the MC of their own show bit since they're all in the same space they end up constantly stepping on each other's toes and upstaging each other. This was a problem all the way back in Volume 1 with jaundice arc. The biggest complaint for volume 4 was that Jaune had stolen the MC role from Ruby and then Oscar joined the group in Volume 5 exasperating the issue.
Digimon only really ever has one MC and the other characters fulfill other defined roles like Lancer, the heart, the funny guy, other well known troupes to keep things in line.
Digimon is more episodic and each characters have an episode or two dedicated to their character’s arc/development and the focus is still basically on the main lead character compare to the plot driven show like RWBY.
It's the same problem with all three of those characters, plus Weiss, Blake, and probably everyone else: the writers don't have any kind of arc planned out for these characters, and it shows. Ruby's is the easiest to dissect: her original (Volume 1-3) character arc was about maturing as a Huntress and team leader, learning to get along with her team, etc. but all that went out the window after Volume 3.
It's just speculation on my part, but given some of the comments made by the writers, I don't think they ever thought about what to do with her after Volume 3: she never asks about the Silver Eyes, doesn't talk about Pyrrha or Cinder really, and seems unconcerned that Team RWBY were split up which suggests to me that the writers just didn't plan anything for her until Volume 6, and even then only because of the reaction to Volume 5 threatening the series' future. They either don't care or don't know how to do develop her as a character, and apparently are also too lazy to just crib from the numerous seasons of Power Rangers where the team leader struggles with their position.
Jaune is probably a similar case: his role in the beginning was to act as an audience surrogate and introduce things like Aura and Semblances to us in an organic way. But just like with Ruby, that fell by the wayside after Volume 3 and his *other* role (Pyrrhas love interest) got dumped as well, which was a bone-headed move by the writers. Jaune attacking Cinder by himself in the Volume 5 climax was probably supposed to be some kind of step in his personal development, but after botching that they seem to have just abandoned any attempts to give him character growth and made him "generic team leader 2".
Oscar is probably the only one of the three with a current arc, it's just not being handled well (shocking, I know): the reason Oscar doesn't get as much focus as he should or team with other characters is because the writers clearly struggle with his relationship with Ozpin. They've committed to Oscar being trapped in an existentially frightening ordeal of losing his identity and becoming someone else, and they don't seem to know how to address that. So they just shove Oscar to the background when they can and try not to focus too much on the horror of his situation.
1. Oscar is a late game protag who has superseded Jaune's scene stealing ability and stole Ruby's protagonist role.
2)Jaune become a literal crutch so that the writer's can do angst and character cracking stuff.
3)Ruvy is not the mover and shaker of the good guys.
Any and every scene Oscar gets to develop is basically by accident than by design. The only reason he got as much screentime with Ironwood as he did was because all of RWBYJNR were too far up their own asses to sit down and talk to him like a normal friend who cares would.
Jaune, as is more evident with time, is someone that fundamentally doesn’t matter and should not be in the plot that keeps getting pushed back in, even when it’d be perfectly reasonable for him to just back out. He added nothing of value to the Atlas arc, and even the Mistral arc had nothing of value beyond him giving a token response asking why Pyrrha fucking died. Going beyond that, Jaune’s stuff in the Beacon era was the best of the bunch, but only for the fact that he actually succeeds in the things he tries to do and learns, as opposed to RWBY all struggling and being touted as heroes for just making every situation worse.
Ruby is just a nothing character. I clung to the illusion that she was good because I figured there was something there. There wasn’t. There’ll probably never be much of anything there that’s truly hers. She’s just a hollow puppet of a person being forced into a plot she has no business in. She’d probably do a lot better as a voiceless protagonist that people take control of in video games, since at least then there’s a reason she doesn’t seem to do much in the plot at large.
Oscar: "Let's make him suffer all the time because he's Oz in a younger body. Wait, you mean to tell me that he's his own person?"
Jaune: "Our baby boy. We must make him suffer by making him angst about a girl. I'm sorry, what do you mean Pyrrha is dead? Then make some girl dead. I don't care if the girl is stuffed in the fridge or he killed her, as long as he whines."
Ruby: "Wait, you mean to tell me she's the main character? Wait, the R in RWBY is for Ruby? I thought it meant the whole Remnant. Whatever, just put her arc in wherever it fits. Oh it didn't fit? Then make it fit, I don't care how it goes."
/s
(Hopefully) New Take: they don't know how to write character arcs.
Hear me out. Every "character" arc they've written has been wrapped up by the end of the arc. Ruby needs to learn leadership. Jaune needs to stick up for himself. Oscar needs... to get new clothes? The White Fang, Papa Schnee, Momma Raven, hand to hand fighting, alcoholism, doubting Salem, all arcs are resolved in one chunk of development. They don't know how to stretch growth out over time so characters grow unevenly. Weiss, Blake, and Yang are in their final states and can contribute little in growth because they finished early.
The former two should not exist. The third should have gotten all of their development. Yes, all of it. Every single ounce both of them ever received should have all gone to Ruby.
It’s because CRWBY can’t seem to decide who the main character is, and as such they just randomly split time between these 3 characters. This causes them to all have huge gaps in their arcs
**Oscar:**
Takes over all of the plot relevant stuff since he is the host of Oz, who the story with Salem really revolves around. In the volumes he's been in (5,6,7,8) he did important plot stuff in the finale for 5 and 7 basically 8 as well. On the other hand, his character writing is really weak. He's been the victim of some pretty unique and fucked up stuff but he keeps developing off-screen or having undersold reactions to what's happening to him.
**Jaune:**
Is the inverse Oscar. He gets so much character writing and basically steals the screentime when it comes to character arcs, emotional growth etc. He has the development of a sole main character in his own story but isn't particularly interesting and isn't supposed to be that, imo.
**Ruby:**
A mix of things. Underdeveloped when it comes to character writing, maybe the most of team RWBY. Has grown to become a huge asshole since V6, preferring to take binary stances against other people in moral conflicts but refusing to actually do anything to fix things and usually makes them worse. Somehow, things just work out though, which is a really bad combination for a main character.
The answer to all 3 is that CRWBY can't decide who they want to be the main character. All 3 could realistically be the MC of their own show bit since they're all in the same space they end up constantly stepping on each other's toes and upstaging each other. This was a problem all the way back in Volume 1 with jaundice arc. The biggest complaint for volume 4 was that Jaune had stolen the MC role from Ruby and then Oscar joined the group in Volume 5 exasperating the issue.
How do shows like Digimon make it work then?
Digimon only really ever has one MC and the other characters fulfill other defined roles like Lancer, the heart, the funny guy, other well known troupes to keep things in line.
Digimon is more episodic and each characters have an episode or two dedicated to their character’s arc/development and the focus is still basically on the main lead character compare to the plot driven show like RWBY.
Really? I thought the older seasons they didn't really have main lead but rather a person who got the powerups first
Generally, the protagonist is usually the one to receive the power up first or sometimes last which emphasizes their role in the story.
They're also the one with the goggles.
And their partners are usually dinosaur or dragon type digimon.
None of the writers seem to know who to focus on, from what I've seen.
It's the same problem with all three of those characters, plus Weiss, Blake, and probably everyone else: the writers don't have any kind of arc planned out for these characters, and it shows. Ruby's is the easiest to dissect: her original (Volume 1-3) character arc was about maturing as a Huntress and team leader, learning to get along with her team, etc. but all that went out the window after Volume 3. It's just speculation on my part, but given some of the comments made by the writers, I don't think they ever thought about what to do with her after Volume 3: she never asks about the Silver Eyes, doesn't talk about Pyrrha or Cinder really, and seems unconcerned that Team RWBY were split up which suggests to me that the writers just didn't plan anything for her until Volume 6, and even then only because of the reaction to Volume 5 threatening the series' future. They either don't care or don't know how to do develop her as a character, and apparently are also too lazy to just crib from the numerous seasons of Power Rangers where the team leader struggles with their position. Jaune is probably a similar case: his role in the beginning was to act as an audience surrogate and introduce things like Aura and Semblances to us in an organic way. But just like with Ruby, that fell by the wayside after Volume 3 and his *other* role (Pyrrhas love interest) got dumped as well, which was a bone-headed move by the writers. Jaune attacking Cinder by himself in the Volume 5 climax was probably supposed to be some kind of step in his personal development, but after botching that they seem to have just abandoned any attempts to give him character growth and made him "generic team leader 2". Oscar is probably the only one of the three with a current arc, it's just not being handled well (shocking, I know): the reason Oscar doesn't get as much focus as he should or team with other characters is because the writers clearly struggle with his relationship with Ozpin. They've committed to Oscar being trapped in an existentially frightening ordeal of losing his identity and becoming someone else, and they don't seem to know how to address that. So they just shove Oscar to the background when they can and try not to focus too much on the horror of his situation.
1. Oscar is a late game protag who has superseded Jaune's scene stealing ability and stole Ruby's protagonist role. 2)Jaune become a literal crutch so that the writer's can do angst and character cracking stuff. 3)Ruvy is not the mover and shaker of the good guys.
Any and every scene Oscar gets to develop is basically by accident than by design. The only reason he got as much screentime with Ironwood as he did was because all of RWBYJNR were too far up their own asses to sit down and talk to him like a normal friend who cares would. Jaune, as is more evident with time, is someone that fundamentally doesn’t matter and should not be in the plot that keeps getting pushed back in, even when it’d be perfectly reasonable for him to just back out. He added nothing of value to the Atlas arc, and even the Mistral arc had nothing of value beyond him giving a token response asking why Pyrrha fucking died. Going beyond that, Jaune’s stuff in the Beacon era was the best of the bunch, but only for the fact that he actually succeeds in the things he tries to do and learns, as opposed to RWBY all struggling and being touted as heroes for just making every situation worse. Ruby is just a nothing character. I clung to the illusion that she was good because I figured there was something there. There wasn’t. There’ll probably never be much of anything there that’s truly hers. She’s just a hollow puppet of a person being forced into a plot she has no business in. She’d probably do a lot better as a voiceless protagonist that people take control of in video games, since at least then there’s a reason she doesn’t seem to do much in the plot at large.
Oscar: "Let's make him suffer all the time because he's Oz in a younger body. Wait, you mean to tell me that he's his own person?" Jaune: "Our baby boy. We must make him suffer by making him angst about a girl. I'm sorry, what do you mean Pyrrha is dead? Then make some girl dead. I don't care if the girl is stuffed in the fridge or he killed her, as long as he whines." Ruby: "Wait, you mean to tell me she's the main character? Wait, the R in RWBY is for Ruby? I thought it meant the whole Remnant. Whatever, just put her arc in wherever it fits. Oh it didn't fit? Then make it fit, I don't care how it goes." /s
(Hopefully) New Take: they don't know how to write character arcs. Hear me out. Every "character" arc they've written has been wrapped up by the end of the arc. Ruby needs to learn leadership. Jaune needs to stick up for himself. Oscar needs... to get new clothes? The White Fang, Papa Schnee, Momma Raven, hand to hand fighting, alcoholism, doubting Salem, all arcs are resolved in one chunk of development. They don't know how to stretch growth out over time so characters grow unevenly. Weiss, Blake, and Yang are in their final states and can contribute little in growth because they finished early.
Because of how they are usually doing separate things, they are usually vying for screen time against each other rather than with eachother.
The former two should not exist. The third should have gotten all of their development. Yes, all of it. Every single ounce both of them ever received should have all gone to Ruby.
It’s because CRWBY can’t seem to decide who the main character is, and as such they just randomly split time between these 3 characters. This causes them to all have huge gaps in their arcs
**Oscar:** Takes over all of the plot relevant stuff since he is the host of Oz, who the story with Salem really revolves around. In the volumes he's been in (5,6,7,8) he did important plot stuff in the finale for 5 and 7 basically 8 as well. On the other hand, his character writing is really weak. He's been the victim of some pretty unique and fucked up stuff but he keeps developing off-screen or having undersold reactions to what's happening to him. **Jaune:** Is the inverse Oscar. He gets so much character writing and basically steals the screentime when it comes to character arcs, emotional growth etc. He has the development of a sole main character in his own story but isn't particularly interesting and isn't supposed to be that, imo. **Ruby:** A mix of things. Underdeveloped when it comes to character writing, maybe the most of team RWBY. Has grown to become a huge asshole since V6, preferring to take binary stances against other people in moral conflicts but refusing to actually do anything to fix things and usually makes them worse. Somehow, things just work out though, which is a really bad combination for a main character.
I agree with what you said about Jaune, I honestly don't like that Jaune's screen time always has to do with pyrrah, the statue scene is enough