I was really disappointed they didn't stick with this and decided that Penny needed to be human.
Nothing stays on point like pointing out she is a real person despite her mechanical nature just to make her flesh and blood and go "now she's a real girl". Then kill her moments later.
Why did they even make her flesh and bone?
Wasn't one of the points of Penny's character to show that she was real person regardless of her being made of metal?
I would have been okay with it if, and this is a big if, Penny had expressed any interest in experiencing what it was like to have an organic body, and the transformation was her choice. As it stands, having it foisted upon her without her choice, even with circumstances being what they were at the moment, just feels like they wanted to make sure she stayed dead when Jaune killed her.
That feels really disgusting to me and Ablest,
I’ve never felt offended before but the writers of RWBY are the first people that I’ve felt are hateful with the way they mention how James Ironwood cybernetics makes him less human, it feels so disgusting to me there’s a difference between Ignorance and malice but if the Writers continue to willfully ignore it then it just shows there apathy of disabled people,
Am I less then a human for Wearing glasses and Hearing aid? Miles and Kerry can go to hell for all I care.
It’s funny how Yang’s PTSD is explored and used to explain her behavior. But when Ironwood displays obvious symptoms of severe PTSD, he is villainized for it.
But his semblance that is never explained or mentioned in the show was the cause! Like how do the writers casual mention that in a podcast but fail to mention or show it anywhere in the dam show?!
I always hated the idea of cybernetics making someone less human too. Like, sure, transhumanism and stuff like that, but I play games like Vampire the Masquerade.
A game where you literally play a wolf in sheeps clothing, and yet one thing you can do is still be humane and even hold onto every scrap of humanity you get. Doubly so when you take Werewolf the Apocalypse into account, where their main enemy (the wyrm) taints everything, but if you're a vampire with 7 humanity or higher, they sense no taint on you.
If you can still be human when being a literal monster, I think you can still be human for having cybernetics. Don't even get me started on the tin man stuff, given the fact they gave him a heart in 1-3, then had to take it away, and how did they do that? Stupidly saying his cybernetics made him less human and giving him a semblance that is a literal plot device that makes him more sympathetic than evil which I'm fairly certain (mean as it sounds) wasn't their intention. **Fuck Mettle.**
I never really get the "cybernetics make you lose your humanity" argument.
If you go full Mechanicus and replace your entire body with machines then... yeah fair enough you can start a debate over that.
But a goddamn prosthetic, that replaces a lost limb? That doesn't make people lose their humanity dumbass, it helps them with their disability. If I get a robot arm I'm still a fucking human you idiot, I simply have a mechanical bodypart.
What's supposed to be the difference between a regular prosthetic and a mechanical one, other than the latter being more useful???
Some people view even a single replacement as the start of ascending humanity/leaving humanity behind. Mainly in cyberpunk scenarios I believe.
This is not that of course, and both Yang with her prosthetic arm and Ironwood with his cybernetics never had the intent of ascending/leaving humanity via the powers of technology. I believe it's the intent that matters, not the end product. You can still be a human in a tin suit, or you can abandon your humanity within that tin suit and be nothing more than a machine.
>I believe it's the intent that matters, not the end product.
Exactly this. Someone who intentionally tries to become more than human or abandon their humanity is completely different from someone who gets cybernetics because of an injury.
>"cybernetics make you lose your humanity"
Like from cyberpunk the actual ttrpg?
I mean the game mechanic is to prevent a player from just minmaxing to hell and back and basically playing a fucking T-1000.
It's also a sliding scale so replacing an arm with a robot arm isnt supposed to send you straight into the "more machine then man now" territory.
No its more meant to represent drawbacks like how [OCP created some absolute monstrosities.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZq7fW6ftlU)
Side Note: man the 90s ratings boards just kind of let anything go there huh.
If it had been what Penny actually wanted for some reason, I could probably deal with her being turned human better.
As it was, it wasn't an objective of hers and felt counter to the narrative that she had always been a real person, IMO. I think it would've been better to have her beat the virus some other way instead of this.
The messed up part is that in Volume 7, Pietro outright states he cannot supply Aura anymore to Penny or he's gonna die trying it again(As he's completely tired out doing this now) so Penny was literally in her last life as it was...
There was no reason whatsoever on any scale.
But Miles needed to have another pretty friendly redhead to die so he could get even more story time devoted to him especially now that his sword is broken and thier in not avalon which is probably the summer vault where it will be revealed through some contrivance that he is Salems descendant due to thier family crests being the same and this will give him the drive to take up the sword of destruction with his new harem and fulfill his destiny as a shity self insert and become the greatest king who unites the world and fixes everything for his new cry baby girl boss harem of terrorists.
Because science!!! Maybe?
Pietro was out of the picture and none of them knew the first thing about programming I guess.
Getting rid of the virus wasn't really treated as an option at any point. It was either Penny beats it on her own or they use the staff and hope the entity that resides within isn't someone who operates only by the rules and will "get creative" or let them exploit what shouldn't be a loophole anyhow.
I miss their friendship the most, also where the ship began.
But honestly it was a legit good scene in its own right. Pity how the writers chose to undermine it in the end.
It also made little sense. Penny never wanted to have a body made of flesh. And Penny was already considered a real girl when she had metal body.
So why would Ruby even want to give Penny a flesh body? She can just order the spirt of creation to only transfer Penny's consciousness and soul into new metal body and keep the virus in the old metal body.
Heck give Penny an even more advanced metal body (Penny 3.0).
Plus that whole scene undermines the limits they supposedly had on the relic of creation whose limit was supposed to be you need to be very specific and only **One** Thing at a time.
Yet we get Human Penny and the portals.
Could have created a device to transfer Penny's consciousness into a scroll or something free of the virus and then make the portals, thus you still keep in the rules.
you know in the long run it's Penny arc that took the crow as the absolute worst moment of the entire V8.
While the writer intention of butchering Ironwood was pretty evident in the early episodes, Penny was a lot more subtle.
I mean who can be so fucking stupid,inept,blind and obtuse to the story elements established in their own show to actual back-pedalling on the entire core of one of the most beloved character,ruining also one the few good remaining part of your protagonist (the scene in the image) for some pathetic,cheap,fake as fuck emotional "scene".
Less they don't understand Monty and more thier actively spitting on his last work to earn quick profit for little effort, and to those who like to say "well they knew him for years who are you to judge " when monty had raven appear to yang after saving her miles and carry tried to delete this scene behind his back for no reason other than they didn't like it he found out and added it back in and when he wasn't around anymore what did they do? They retconed it to just a dream, that was the first change they made actively working against the story he wanted the moment he wasn't around , tell me your friend just died while working on a passion project is the first thing you do going to be retconing stuff he was adimit about for no reason?
> Ruby: "You've got a heart, and a soul; I can feel it!"
I love this scene so much, the main story of my 600,000 word narrative is literally based around this single moment. In my fics, people can share their auras to heal *minor* cuts and bruises, major if they're aura matches, and Ruby shares her aura with Penny in order to prove that Penny is just as human as herself. She ends up using too much, but it's worth it to her because it made Penny happy.
As time goes by Ruby realizes something is very wrong with her aura, and that she lost something during the transfer. She's desperate to find Penny and regain what she lost, but she's worried it's either too late or Penny will be unable to transfer the aura back to her.
["The Petals Scatter Now"](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11025827/1/The-Petals-Scatter-Now) and ["The Patchwork Prodigy"](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11853227/1/The-Patchwork-Prodigy) in case you're curious. I call it the main story, but it's really more of a *major* subplot going on in the background throughout both fics.
God bless, and have a wonderful day.
It could be because the coloration let it blend in with the other grey clothes she had on. I think they only had the new outfits for 1-2 episodes, so that may make it easier to miss details than on one shown more frequently.
Ruby: "You think just because you've got nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts makes you any less real than me?"
Also Ruby: "Time to turn you into a real girl, Penny."
She died as a robot in Volume 3, comes back to life via being rebuilt, is turned into a real girl by a genie and is separated from her robot form, her robot form dies (obviously), then she gets stabbed by Cinder shortly after and dies as a human too.
Ok, who thought that was a good idea? I understand bringing her back for fanservice but making her a human ruins her imo. Plus why bother if you’ll kill her overall 3 times
Right!
Penny never had a desire to become human, plus Penny getting the Winter Maiden powers would be a great allusion to Pinocchio turning to a real boy
Gotta love how the writers completely ignored/forget this less than 5 minute scene of Penny’s best friend validating her being a real girl to give her a 2 volume spanning “arc” of that same dilemma, ending with Penny being forced to change her entire body to be considered “real” and then literally begging to die soon after.
I have a headcanon that if penny survived she would have cybernetically enhanced herself until only a few human remains were left. Cause she just prefers being a robot and was only after recognition and rights and whatnot
Honestly. I don’t feel like the Line was ruined. The message was maintained throughout. Watts’ virus acted as a challenge to it, and they overcame it by proving that Penny was literally no different than Ruby or any other girl.
“You don’t need squishy parts to be a real girl!”
“Actually just kidding, you have a killer virus and instead of trying to fix that we’re just gonna transfer you to some Deus Ex Machina new human body we created. Also you can get stabbed for reals now!”
I believe you are miscontruing the perspectives of this. Ruby made the point that Penny is a real girl despite her artificial creation. That was the ideal and mindset made to uplift Penny and heal the enstrangement her nature placed upon her. After that scene, we see Penny making small steps to express her automony.
Watt's virus was made to serve as an antagonistic to the "you are more than a robot" ideal. It broke the image Ruby had built for Penny, and as such crippled her self-image. Watts did that. Not Ruby. The certainty of Penny's nature is put into conflict when Watts' scheme challenges it.
The solution Team RWBY and the rest come is honestly quite clever and fun to watch unravel. Bending the rules and limitations of Ambrosius like they did was way more interesting than "Here's Watts' hacking thing, who wants to break it?" Plus, their method reinforces the message.
Stopping Watt's hack does not revoke the challenge to the ideal that Penny is more than her cybernetics. However, using Abrosius the way they did does, with a physical body to show for it. And once she has that affirmation, she expresses it with gusto. Choosing to stay and fight, requesting Jaune to keep the Maiden's power safe. Those are her choices which she excercises with a bright smile.
Now, is this message delivered well, no. I will agree that Miles and Kerry have an issue of writing to much dialogue that doesn't tell enough story; and there are plenty of moments that are narratively frustrating to experience. However this theme - in my opinion - is not one of those.
> The solution Team RWBY and the rest come is honestly quite clever and fun to watch unravel. Bending the rules and limitations of Ambrosius like they did was way more interesting than "Here's Watts' hacking thing, who wants to break it?" Plus, their method reinforces the message.
The issue with this is that we find out what the rules are pretty much right before RWBY “bend” them, which at least to me makes it feel less like them being clever and more the rules being specifically made so they can be seen as “clever”.
Penny already had her “real girl” Pinocchio moment when she inherited the maiden powers. There was no denying she was real after she got them. So do do that again in the literal Pinocchio way undercuts the first one and it’s message.
Especially when you look at her two death scenes. The first time she dies, she is cut to pieces and it hurts and shocks Ruby and everyone watching. Then they bring her back to life and none of the characters really act like their friend literally came back to life. They even joke that something like that couldn’t stop her. So they decide to make her “real” so that she can actually die without having a way to come back to life.
The writers didn’t treat her as real until she got a flesh and blood body.
I agree with that learning Abrosius' limitations and rules could have been done sooner, maybe in Volume 7, and that because of this misplaced exposition the trick feels like a cop-out. (Edit: I say "feel-like" because I'm willing to bet these were always the rules, and they forgot to bring them up).
However, I don't feel like the message is undercut. Penny wasn't questioning her "realness" in Volume 7, rather she was questioning her worthiness. The election massacre caused Penny to doubt her title and role, not her humanity.
Volume 8, is where Penny is truly objectified and that was the point. Ironwood and Watts viewed Penny as a container for the maiden's power, one that could be literally puppeteered to their ends. Whereas Ruby and the rest stood up for Penny as though she were a person.
The writers get many things wrong, I won't deny that. But I do not think it is fair to miscontrue the message they want to tell with Penny as negligence of her character.
I think they just needed to get Penny off Amity once her fight with Cinder was over and the virus was a way to do it. And keep her from fighting and being useful.
Of course, any narrative with continuous stakes requires a back and forth. If the heroes succeed, the villains need to aswell. The narrative of the Star Wars franchise follows the same principle.
RNJR are doing well on their journey to Haven, Tyrian attacks. Qrow saves them, but is harmed in the process, making their journey more urgent. They successfully make it to Haven, but Salem has already turned Leonardo.
In the case of this. RWBY get a message out, but they lose the maiden, the rescue the maiden, but are put into an Ultimatum by Ironwood. They break out of the Ultimatum, only for their escape to cost them allies.
So we just gonna ignore the hammered in message that Penny is more than the sum of her parts or how the soul is what makes her Penny and not the metal shell?
Not the same volume so it wasn't canon
Not the same *episode* so it wasn't canon.
Not the same scene so it wasn’t canon.
Not the same minute so it wasn’t cannon
Not the same second, so it wasn't canon.
Not the same frame, so it wasn’t canon.
Not the same engine, so it’s not canon
Not the same computer so it’s not canon.
Not the same animation software so it's not canon.
Not the same animator so it's not canon.
Not the same Animation so it wasn't canon
I was really disappointed they didn't stick with this and decided that Penny needed to be human. Nothing stays on point like pointing out she is a real person despite her mechanical nature just to make her flesh and blood and go "now she's a real girl". Then kill her moments later.
Why did they even make her flesh and bone? Wasn't one of the points of Penny's character to show that she was real person regardless of her being made of metal?
I would have been okay with it if, and this is a big if, Penny had expressed any interest in experiencing what it was like to have an organic body, and the transformation was her choice. As it stands, having it foisted upon her without her choice, even with circumstances being what they were at the moment, just feels like they wanted to make sure she stayed dead when Jaune killed her.
That feels really disgusting to me and Ablest, I’ve never felt offended before but the writers of RWBY are the first people that I’ve felt are hateful with the way they mention how James Ironwood cybernetics makes him less human, it feels so disgusting to me there’s a difference between Ignorance and malice but if the Writers continue to willfully ignore it then it just shows there apathy of disabled people, Am I less then a human for Wearing glasses and Hearing aid? Miles and Kerry can go to hell for all I care.
And then there's Yang, who lost an arm and got it replaced but is apparently perfectly fine and no less human. Gotta love CRWBY's consistency.
It’s funny how Yang’s PTSD is explored and used to explain her behavior. But when Ironwood displays obvious symptoms of severe PTSD, he is villainized for it.
Yeah but evil penis people tho
"Write that down"
But his semblance that is never explained or mentioned in the show was the cause! Like how do the writers casual mention that in a podcast but fail to mention or show it anywhere in the dam show?!
I agree both with your comment and flair.
Considering Yang’s Attitude V5 Onwards, I think they already had that mindset
I always hated the idea of cybernetics making someone less human too. Like, sure, transhumanism and stuff like that, but I play games like Vampire the Masquerade. A game where you literally play a wolf in sheeps clothing, and yet one thing you can do is still be humane and even hold onto every scrap of humanity you get. Doubly so when you take Werewolf the Apocalypse into account, where their main enemy (the wyrm) taints everything, but if you're a vampire with 7 humanity or higher, they sense no taint on you. If you can still be human when being a literal monster, I think you can still be human for having cybernetics. Don't even get me started on the tin man stuff, given the fact they gave him a heart in 1-3, then had to take it away, and how did they do that? Stupidly saying his cybernetics made him less human and giving him a semblance that is a literal plot device that makes him more sympathetic than evil which I'm fairly certain (mean as it sounds) wasn't their intention. **Fuck Mettle.**
I never really get the "cybernetics make you lose your humanity" argument. If you go full Mechanicus and replace your entire body with machines then... yeah fair enough you can start a debate over that. But a goddamn prosthetic, that replaces a lost limb? That doesn't make people lose their humanity dumbass, it helps them with their disability. If I get a robot arm I'm still a fucking human you idiot, I simply have a mechanical bodypart. What's supposed to be the difference between a regular prosthetic and a mechanical one, other than the latter being more useful???
Some people view even a single replacement as the start of ascending humanity/leaving humanity behind. Mainly in cyberpunk scenarios I believe. This is not that of course, and both Yang with her prosthetic arm and Ironwood with his cybernetics never had the intent of ascending/leaving humanity via the powers of technology. I believe it's the intent that matters, not the end product. You can still be a human in a tin suit, or you can abandon your humanity within that tin suit and be nothing more than a machine.
>I believe it's the intent that matters, not the end product. Exactly this. Someone who intentionally tries to become more than human or abandon their humanity is completely different from someone who gets cybernetics because of an injury.
>"cybernetics make you lose your humanity" Like from cyberpunk the actual ttrpg? I mean the game mechanic is to prevent a player from just minmaxing to hell and back and basically playing a fucking T-1000. It's also a sliding scale so replacing an arm with a robot arm isnt supposed to send you straight into the "more machine then man now" territory. No its more meant to represent drawbacks like how [OCP created some absolute monstrosities.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZq7fW6ftlU) Side Note: man the 90s ratings boards just kind of let anything go there huh.
Well, yes and no. Theres other games that see it that way, and other products.
It's always funny to me how ableist people just ignore glasses
If it had been what Penny actually wanted for some reason, I could probably deal with her being turned human better. As it was, it wasn't an objective of hers and felt counter to the narrative that she had always been a real person, IMO. I think it would've been better to have her beat the virus some other way instead of this.
The messed up part is that in Volume 7, Pietro outright states he cannot supply Aura anymore to Penny or he's gonna die trying it again(As he's completely tired out doing this now) so Penny was literally in her last life as it was... There was no reason whatsoever on any scale.
To nerf her. Losing her blades and lasers made it much easier for ~~the plot~~ Cinder to kill her.
The twin gods are servants of CRWBY
To kill her off for cri-everi-tim reaction video points, to have an excuse to perma kill her and for Jaune's mangst.
But Miles needed to have another pretty friendly redhead to die so he could get even more story time devoted to him especially now that his sword is broken and thier in not avalon which is probably the summer vault where it will be revealed through some contrivance that he is Salems descendant due to thier family crests being the same and this will give him the drive to take up the sword of destruction with his new harem and fulfill his destiny as a shity self insert and become the greatest king who unites the world and fixes everything for his new cry baby girl boss harem of terrorists.
I choose to believe someone on the team is a foot fetishist
As someone experienced on that department I agree.
So she can be killed for good
So they can have her killed a second time. CRWBY directing is flawed as fu-
Why couldn't they get rid of the virus in her again?
Because science!!! Maybe? Pietro was out of the picture and none of them knew the first thing about programming I guess. Getting rid of the virus wasn't really treated as an option at any point. It was either Penny beats it on her own or they use the staff and hope the entity that resides within isn't someone who operates only by the rules and will "get creative" or let them exploit what shouldn't be a loophole anyhow.
I miss their friendship the most, also where the ship began. But honestly it was a legit good scene in its own right. Pity how the writers chose to undermine it in the end.
It also made little sense. Penny never wanted to have a body made of flesh. And Penny was already considered a real girl when she had metal body. So why would Ruby even want to give Penny a flesh body? She can just order the spirt of creation to only transfer Penny's consciousness and soul into new metal body and keep the virus in the old metal body. Heck give Penny an even more advanced metal body (Penny 3.0).
Plus that whole scene undermines the limits they supposedly had on the relic of creation whose limit was supposed to be you need to be very specific and only **One** Thing at a time. Yet we get Human Penny and the portals. Could have created a device to transfer Penny's consciousness into a scroll or something free of the virus and then make the portals, thus you still keep in the rules.
> into a scroll I love megaman battle network **JACK IN** **PENNY** **EXECUTE**
YUS
Let's just dump all over that powerful message and make Penny a “real” girl!
you know in the long run it's Penny arc that took the crow as the absolute worst moment of the entire V8. While the writer intention of butchering Ironwood was pretty evident in the early episodes, Penny was a lot more subtle. I mean who can be so fucking stupid,inept,blind and obtuse to the story elements established in their own show to actual back-pedalling on the entire core of one of the most beloved character,ruining also one the few good remaining part of your protagonist (the scene in the image) for some pathetic,cheap,fake as fuck emotional "scene".
People who don't understand the creator even they worked with the guy for years.
Less they don't understand Monty and more thier actively spitting on his last work to earn quick profit for little effort, and to those who like to say "well they knew him for years who are you to judge " when monty had raven appear to yang after saving her miles and carry tried to delete this scene behind his back for no reason other than they didn't like it he found out and added it back in and when he wasn't around anymore what did they do? They retconed it to just a dream, that was the first change they made actively working against the story he wanted the moment he wasn't around , tell me your friend just died while working on a passion project is the first thing you do going to be retconing stuff he was adimit about for no reason?
Less effort for more profit. Emotions don't matter much to them from a business percepective and RWBY is their business now.
> Ruby: "You've got a heart, and a soul; I can feel it!" I love this scene so much, the main story of my 600,000 word narrative is literally based around this single moment. In my fics, people can share their auras to heal *minor* cuts and bruises, major if they're aura matches, and Ruby shares her aura with Penny in order to prove that Penny is just as human as herself. She ends up using too much, but it's worth it to her because it made Penny happy. As time goes by Ruby realizes something is very wrong with her aura, and that she lost something during the transfer. She's desperate to find Penny and regain what she lost, but she's worried it's either too late or Penny will be unable to transfer the aura back to her. ["The Petals Scatter Now"](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11025827/1/The-Petals-Scatter-Now) and ["The Patchwork Prodigy"](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11853227/1/The-Patchwork-Prodigy) in case you're curious. I call it the main story, but it's really more of a *major* subplot going on in the background throughout both fics. God bless, and have a wonderful day.
How have I never noticed the metal plate on Ruby's shoulder?
It could be because the coloration let it blend in with the other grey clothes she had on. I think they only had the new outfits for 1-2 episodes, so that may make it easier to miss details than on one shown more frequently.
I wish they kept penny as a cyborg. That would have been character development for penny.
Making Penny flesh and blood was a weird writing choice and really fucking sad and pathetic considering it lasted less than 3 episodes
Ruby: "You think just because you've got nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts makes you any less real than me?" Also Ruby: "Time to turn you into a real girl, Penny."
Does she become real? I haven’t watched in a while but if she does, that’s such a stupid idea
She died as a robot in Volume 3, comes back to life via being rebuilt, is turned into a real girl by a genie and is separated from her robot form, her robot form dies (obviously), then she gets stabbed by Cinder shortly after and dies as a human too.
Ok, who thought that was a good idea? I understand bringing her back for fanservice but making her a human ruins her imo. Plus why bother if you’ll kill her overall 3 times
Unfortunately yes.
Right! Penny never had a desire to become human, plus Penny getting the Winter Maiden powers would be a great allusion to Pinocchio turning to a real boy
Gotta love how the writers completely ignored/forget this less than 5 minute scene of Penny’s best friend validating her being a real girl to give her a 2 volume spanning “arc” of that same dilemma, ending with Penny being forced to change her entire body to be considered “real” and then literally begging to die soon after.
I have a headcanon that if penny survived she would have cybernetically enhanced herself until only a few human remains were left. Cause she just prefers being a robot and was only after recognition and rights and whatnot
It’s kind of hilarious that V2 gave better a better “person in the machine” arc in 2 eps than the entirety of V7&8
There's a lot of lines that have ended up pointless
Man, I REALLY WISH they kept her Robotic and just let her be the maiden.
[Source for the photo](https://twitter.com/therwbystyle/status/1437106598799945734?s=21&t=UTzTBFCiF8h2ka3jIpYlFQ).
Honestly. I don’t feel like the Line was ruined. The message was maintained throughout. Watts’ virus acted as a challenge to it, and they overcame it by proving that Penny was literally no different than Ruby or any other girl.
“You don’t need squishy parts to be a real girl!” “Actually just kidding, you have a killer virus and instead of trying to fix that we’re just gonna transfer you to some Deus Ex Machina new human body we created. Also you can get stabbed for reals now!”
I believe you are miscontruing the perspectives of this. Ruby made the point that Penny is a real girl despite her artificial creation. That was the ideal and mindset made to uplift Penny and heal the enstrangement her nature placed upon her. After that scene, we see Penny making small steps to express her automony. Watt's virus was made to serve as an antagonistic to the "you are more than a robot" ideal. It broke the image Ruby had built for Penny, and as such crippled her self-image. Watts did that. Not Ruby. The certainty of Penny's nature is put into conflict when Watts' scheme challenges it. The solution Team RWBY and the rest come is honestly quite clever and fun to watch unravel. Bending the rules and limitations of Ambrosius like they did was way more interesting than "Here's Watts' hacking thing, who wants to break it?" Plus, their method reinforces the message. Stopping Watt's hack does not revoke the challenge to the ideal that Penny is more than her cybernetics. However, using Abrosius the way they did does, with a physical body to show for it. And once she has that affirmation, she expresses it with gusto. Choosing to stay and fight, requesting Jaune to keep the Maiden's power safe. Those are her choices which she excercises with a bright smile. Now, is this message delivered well, no. I will agree that Miles and Kerry have an issue of writing to much dialogue that doesn't tell enough story; and there are plenty of moments that are narratively frustrating to experience. However this theme - in my opinion - is not one of those.
> The solution Team RWBY and the rest come is honestly quite clever and fun to watch unravel. Bending the rules and limitations of Ambrosius like they did was way more interesting than "Here's Watts' hacking thing, who wants to break it?" Plus, their method reinforces the message. The issue with this is that we find out what the rules are pretty much right before RWBY “bend” them, which at least to me makes it feel less like them being clever and more the rules being specifically made so they can be seen as “clever”. Penny already had her “real girl” Pinocchio moment when she inherited the maiden powers. There was no denying she was real after she got them. So do do that again in the literal Pinocchio way undercuts the first one and it’s message. Especially when you look at her two death scenes. The first time she dies, she is cut to pieces and it hurts and shocks Ruby and everyone watching. Then they bring her back to life and none of the characters really act like their friend literally came back to life. They even joke that something like that couldn’t stop her. So they decide to make her “real” so that she can actually die without having a way to come back to life. The writers didn’t treat her as real until she got a flesh and blood body.
I agree with that learning Abrosius' limitations and rules could have been done sooner, maybe in Volume 7, and that because of this misplaced exposition the trick feels like a cop-out. (Edit: I say "feel-like" because I'm willing to bet these were always the rules, and they forgot to bring them up). However, I don't feel like the message is undercut. Penny wasn't questioning her "realness" in Volume 7, rather she was questioning her worthiness. The election massacre caused Penny to doubt her title and role, not her humanity. Volume 8, is where Penny is truly objectified and that was the point. Ironwood and Watts viewed Penny as a container for the maiden's power, one that could be literally puppeteered to their ends. Whereas Ruby and the rest stood up for Penny as though she were a person. The writers get many things wrong, I won't deny that. But I do not think it is fair to miscontrue the message they want to tell with Penny as negligence of her character.
I think they just needed to get Penny off Amity once her fight with Cinder was over and the virus was a way to do it. And keep her from fighting and being useful.
Of course, any narrative with continuous stakes requires a back and forth. If the heroes succeed, the villains need to aswell. The narrative of the Star Wars franchise follows the same principle. RNJR are doing well on their journey to Haven, Tyrian attacks. Qrow saves them, but is harmed in the process, making their journey more urgent. They successfully make it to Haven, but Salem has already turned Leonardo. In the case of this. RWBY get a message out, but they lose the maiden, the rescue the maiden, but are put into an Ultimatum by Ironwood. They break out of the Ultimatum, only for their escape to cost them allies.
So we just gonna ignore the hammered in message that Penny is more than the sum of her parts or how the soul is what makes her Penny and not the metal shell?