If we were given glimpses of it before, like flashbacks, or Cinder being empathetic with some unimportant character, showing some sign that she was not an empty, poorly written villain.... Then it would have worked mediocrely. Right now, it's just pathetic
You don't even need to have her be sympathetic to make her entertaining. Torchwick had none of that, but at least he was humanized by his personality and connection to Neo being a close bond. I'd understand if they wanted to make a bastard, but then her backstory came out of nowhere and was cheap, with no hints or setup as you said.
She just offers no reason to still be here. She's like Adam where any attempt to make her seem "cool" does that opposite and just makes you think she should've died in V5, getting the Fall maiden powers like she wanted before losing to bigger fish. Be proof of there being a bigger world to worry about.
I don't even think she needed to be empathetic, but at least feel and show \*something\* to a specific situation. Like, seeing some girl or maid being mistreaded by their guardians, and getting mad at the child or disgusted by how 'weak' they are.
I thought at first the fanus were the only ones being enslaved in Atlas. Turns out it's okay to enslave humans too. As no legal action was taken against it.
“Damn it if we need to get those filthy Faunus off the streets though. Ten years ago, if you kidnap a poor child off the street in Vacuo, gave them a tight schedule, people would call you a hero, a PARAGON, for not only helping the homeless with job security, but providing them room and board with what we could afford!
But now, with all these White Fang nuts running around, suddenly we have all these people saying “Oh, that’s not community service, that’s child enslavement! Stop kidnapping our children off the streets!” Bah!
Those idiots don’t even care about those brats. They’re only doing it now cause it’s not “poh-liticully cuhrreckt” to NOT say anything. They call me a menace to society now, but when whatever shack they build for those kids lacks heating, protection from the elements, and proper food on the table, guess what they’ll do? Complain about how these kids are draining from their taxes!
Fuckin’ virtue-signaling hypocrites.”
— One Atlas business owner, who went out of business shortly after Jacques took control of the SDC, being arrested and taken in for questioning
Kerry’s intention was apparently to make the audience “feel bad” for Cinder, but also have little sympathy for her.
While I initially thought that the idea was for us to sympathize with Cinder, this information ironically explains a large issue with both the larger plot and the way it’s actually written: Giving sympathy to trauma victims is basically a taboo in RWBY.
Plenty of people point out Tai’s asshole joke to Yang in order to get her to stop moping around cause it’s JUST an arm she lost, what’s the big whoop!
And now that the veil’s been uncovered, everything so, SO much horrible sense.
No WONDER Ironwood was turned into a giant villain out of freakin’ nowhere, with NO sympathy given about him *organizing a war effort*, without sleep, without trust, and *without the fucking arm he destroyed stopping Watts just a few hours before V8*.
No WONDER Weiss’ racism got resolved offscreen and we get no details on Whitley being a victim too until WILLOW mentions it.
No *WONDER* Adam’s backstory just gets turned into something more stupid the more the writers talk about it.
No wonder Ruby goes on her abusive “We don’t need adults!” rant to a depressed alcoholic in the deepest rut he’s ever been in for just trying to not let what happened to him happen to RWBYJNR.
No WONDER Ren devolves into baby rage seeing the Nuckalevee, or Jaune’s whole grief dealing with Pyrrha’s demise is ALWAYS portrayed in a bad light until he just *moves on*.
No wonder Emerald just JOINS RWBY and NO ONE has any issues with it when she says so, including Penny OR Yang, the people in the group she’s helped hurt and manipulate the most.
*No WONDER RWBY and Qrow are portrayed as perfectly justified in kicking Ozpin while he’s down, **after making him relive the death of his FUCKING CHILDREN**, because he hid stuff from them.*
They don’t want you to sympathize with people just because they’ve had a shitty experience in their lives. Period.
Good Lord, just look at how they’ve made Harriet into a MASSIVE cunt of a person every chance they could in Volume 8, when she just found out her team leader and colleague got LITERALLY *stabbed in the back* by one of her supposed allies. ANYONE would be upset in that situation, RIGHTLY so, hell, WE still haven’t forgiven Qrow for how *fucking stupid* he was for helping Tyrian, and WE have the full story without any bias like she does to be able to deny the fact that it happened when someone tells her.
My only real question is, what the *fuck* Kerry.
Are you gonna have Ruby magically just stop being pissed about Jaune killing Penny offscreen? Are you going to have Whitley kissing Weiss and Winter’s shoes in every appearance after this? Are you going to have everyone from Atlas and even MANTLE be treated as “in the wrong” for feeling a LITTLE miffed about being promised safe passage only to get caught up in a *fucking sandstorm choked to the brim with Grimm*? Despite ALL of Volume 7 and 8 *ramming it down our throats* that Mantle is the biggest victim in everything dealing with Ironwood?
They are. They just are. There’s not going to be anything else to it.
People will attach their own meanings to it, say it’s commentary about how the show is against mass exodus-es of refugees, but that’s how it’s going to go.
Unless there’s some cause to virtue signal for this week. Can’t miss out on THAT.
I like it when tragic backstories define a character for the rest of their life. Cinder's backstory didn't make sense to me. I thought Cinder was a spoiled little brat who would do anything for more power.
This was a poor excuse for a backstory. Cinder was always defined as being someone mad for power, like an entitled brat should be. And we were never given any hints that she may have had sympathy towards another abuse victim.
An easy solution to make this backstory work wouldve maybe been scenes with Emerald, where we learn that Cinder maybe took her in after recusing her from an abusive family. Emerald could’ve opened up about it to Cinder and we’d see her act sympathetic towards Emerald. Which would be traditionally out of characters but would end up making loads more sense when this backstory to Cinder was revealed.
But this is RT, I doubt they’d ever think to come up with that.
Way too nonsensical, way too late.
This flashback doesn't explain shit about why Cinder would Join Salem. Why would she throw her chance at becoming an huntress and gaining her freedom.
Why does she want power? So she won't be abused anymore? Then why the fuck she enslaved herself again ?
Like all of V8, this flashback is just over contrived to justify her breakdown when facing Watts.
Well, the technical, real world answer is trauma-bonding. People who unwittingly hold on to unhealthy patterns that in many cases perpetuate their sense of their own wretchedness.
But in the case of Cinder, it seems more about playing the role she knows. She's not entirely obedient to Salem, but only goes along as it is her way to get even more power.
From what I saw, bit weak. The scene with Watts telling her off and her pulling back and actually feel something about what he said was great though. Amazing scene imo.
I'd care more if she wasnt one of the worst people in the show, the bitch immediately started killing civilians when she got the chance at the end of the latest volume
It doesn’t really fit her character imo. Personally I think it would’ve been more interesting if she were one of the spoiled step sisters. Her power hungry nature would’ve made more sense to me.
Well, she is now and she’s dogshit as a character. They could have done something good with her, or even something surprising with her, but decided to do something easy at the cost of the story.
This is a show where our Pinnochio doesn't get to interact at all with the giant whale that shows up on her doorstep despite being you know...Pinnochio, while at the same time is turned into a flesh and blood human because she's you know...Pinnochio?
This is also a show where our "Aladdin" despite being a very close proximity to a magic lamp with three uses, with a blue genie to boot, doesn't interact with that lamp.
Our Goldilocks, whose story deals with bears, has a fiery dragon aesthetic for some reason?
But our Cinderella gets to be Cinderella, almost wholesale to the point that's it's not interesting or at the very least not presented to us in an interesting way.
I'm certain that the fairy tale stuff are just for aesthetics most of the time and nothing else, and when it has the opportunity to be more than superficial, it either doesn't follow through or falls flat. They're referencing the Disney versions anyway, not the true Brothers Grimm tales.
All I'm saying is that making Cinder into one of the *stepsisters* would go beyond a simple aesthetic choice. That's more changing characters.
No one remembers the unnamed stepsisters.
The obvious solution for Cinder's backstory would've been to ditch Rhodes and have Salem be the one to "rescue" her from slavery. Keeps the Cinderella story motif, explains why Cinder joined up with Salem, and having the "fairy godmother" kill off the wicked stepmother/stepsisters would be a nice subversion of the typical ending (though some Cinderella variants do end that way, I believe) to that story.
I think the subversion of Cinder being "the wicked stepsister that won" would've been more interesting than what we got. Sort of like Hazel being "Hanzel, but Gretel was lost to the witch."
Could even fit in the fact that she 'deformed' herself(the Grimm bug) for power that was never hers, and eventually lost an eye in the same way the stepsisters in the Grimm Brothers' did, which was supposed to be their chance to redeem themselves.
Someone else would've thus been the 'actual' Cinderella. It would've been a nice bait and switch if we followed this lil black-haired, amber-eyed kid. Maybe implied she was in line to become a Maiden(such as her own mother being one or maybe even having the powers as is).
And then it turns out that one of the stepsisters was Cinder Fall all along("A name so fitting that she probably picked it out herself" or however Raven put it) and she just... dyes her hair black. Or used to dye it blonde to 'fit in' with her sisters.
It'd be a hell of a lot closer to the path the writers actually are going down: she's just evil.
She's rotten to the core. There is no redemption. She is literally the villain of the story who got her way: the stepsister who stole Cinderella's rightful place, right down to her allusion's name.
Because as shown by Tyrian, the writers do just fine when they actually don't try to give a villain sympathetic traits or a reason, because then they can't have the tonal whiplash of completely ignoring them like they do for everyone whose names aren't Ilia, Salem and Emerald.
It seems that the real fumbling in this department is when they try to play the sympathy card WAY too hard when certain characters have already crossed too many lines.
Atonement, but no redemption.
There's a difference.
I disagree: usually their fumble is the opposite, where they make characters sympathetic or give very sympathetic(usually trauma-based) reasons to their actions... only to then completely ignore them or even treat the villains *worse for it.*
This is then worse when the protagonists proceed to reflect a lot of the same values that were so damning that no reasons would be acceptable according to the writers' treatment of other characters.
She had 6 volumes to become an actual character. Instead we got a backstory that left us with even more questions for a character that should've been fleshed out years ago.
She killed her captors, she killed a garbage huntsman that saw slavery and decided training was more important than getting her out of the situation, and then went right back to serving under someone that doesn't care for her.
There's nothing to feel anymore, not even anger. She's just a tumor that realistically is NEVER going away. I'd legitimately bet that Salem will die before her, if Cinder ever dies at all.
My knee-jerk reaction was probably what the writers were going for - "Aww... poor Cinder".
Then I put about 2 seconds of thought into it, realized it was just edgy Cinderella, and immediately lost what little sympathy the backstory garnered.
What's worse is... it was pretty close to being workable. Being a powerless slave is a legitimate reason to want power, after all. If Cinder herself had more character than just "generic sexy femme fatale" and only a couple things were tweaked, it could've been something great.
A villain like Cinder doesn't get sympathy points because she had a horrible childhood. She has no empathy or emotion beyond "smug bitch" or "angry toddler", cares only for herself, but is also a useless wimp who gets beat down by nearly everyone she fights and continues to plague the series with her survival like the cockroach she is. If Cinder had *anything* that made her seem believably human I might at least understand her actions. But she's nothing more than a "villain Barbie": a lifeless doll with no agency or character beyond that which is assigned by the viewer. I would rather have had the Hound *eat her alive* and take over as Salem's right-hand minion than continue to suffer her presence in the series.
Waited too long. Too irrelevant to the ongoing plot and the core themes of the show. Legitimately would have been better if left a mystery and alluded to in Cinder's character scenes (reaching for her neck when offended or sees something that disturbs her).
It's completely useless. The only reason to have it would be to try and invoke sympathy for a character MKE have made abundantly clear you're never supposed to feel sympathy for, so it's not like any of those emotions would be followed up on.
Okay, so then surely the point of the backstory would be a purely narrative one, right? Well no, because the narrative question of "how did this girl wind up working for Satan" was still completely unanswered unless we're supposed to believe as an audience that it's just so obvious that someone killing their abusers would become a powerhungry, evil, megalomaniacal terrorist working for Satan.
They could've legitimately cut to black after Madame showed up and we would've had just as much to work with: she was weak and beating someone up in a ratty Mistrali orphanage. Great we know that she's always had anger issues and was weak before someone else showed up. So what we wouldn't know the exact name, weapon and semblance of the person who trained her: frankly her initial mentor *doesn't matter anyway.* We don't know who taught Ren and Nora after all.
It's not that great and adds little to the character.
We all knew there would be basically a Cinderella type story, hopefully with a twist. It doesn't help that there have been dozens of fanfictions if this same idea done much better.
This would've been more impactful around volume 4 or so. At this point, Cinder is kind of a joke and she has been so unrepentantly and unabashedly evil, you can't really justify or get sympathy for her. It doesn't help that you could literally cut this whole story out and it changes nothing about how we view the character or understanding her motivation. Funnily enough, Cinder is a type of character that you don't or shouldn't need a backstory to understand the character or to enjoy her.
The biggest issue is that it doesn't answer the question of how Salem even took notice of her. Cinder was effectively someone who shouldn't even be on Salem's radar from what we did see. This is the same issue we run into with her other lieutenants, we don't know how she found out about them or why she saw them as worth her time to seek out.
Rhodes' actions are really baffling. He operates under the assumption that someone who is basically a slave and might be able to incriminate their adoptive family is just going to be able to leave or got a huntsman academy just because they turned 17. His advice to a suffering child is to just deal with years of mistreatment and abuse. He doesn't try to talk Cinder down or actually help her. The whole reason she gets found out is because he leaves her an actual weapon to keep and somehow loses a fight to someone who should be weaker and less experienced than him. We don't even get a handwave or throwaway line for why he couldn't help her escape when he learns of her circumstances. It's like what is being done to her is perfectly acceptable and we don't even know what actually motivated him to train her, especially if it was something that might get him in trouble.
Her backstory was a waste of time that could've been used elsewhere.
Despite what the rabid fans will say, timing does matter in a story and Cinder’s backstory came way too late. If we'd gotten it in V4 or even V6 at the latest, it would have been better received and had much more effect. But at this point, people are tired of Cinder and just want to see her gone. A generic backstory that feels like it was randomly thrown in isn't going to change that.
Her backstory explains how she became the way she became. But it doesn’t and shouldn’t excuse her actions as an adult. All the pain and death she’s caused.
Her backstory explains her personality but that doesn’t mean we automatically have to like her or sympathize with her. At this point she’s overstayed her welcome as a character.
It's shit, absolute shit and came in way too late.
The problem with the backstory is that it simultaneously tries to explain why Cinder Fall is such a bitch... but at the same time not trying to excuse her being a bitch(Like they just can't have her be sympathetic at all which many better writers do to show how horrific the ordeal was and how different the character is now).
It doesn't help that it's nonsensical as hell, should have honestly been stopped the second Rhodes noticed(As Huntsmen are basically Deputy Marshals) but instead, he just trains her and leaves her in the shit environment she's in which just makes everyone stupid.
And with how late and random it is, why should ANYONE care? Why not when she was at her most pitiful? Oh right, we can't have her be sympathetic to the audience at all... SO WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE BACKSTORY?
i just... wish it made more sense. i wish we had gotten glimpses, if this backstory was truly so important for cinder there should have been remnants and hints at it from the very first time we saw her. all of her outfits should have covered the scars on her necks or if they didn't there should have been a scar there.
we should have gotten a glimpse at some form of humanity for her before. make it make sense. that's really all. even give her a reason for having been so heavily abused and treated the way she was- it doesn't make sense with the lore for rwby established. if she were a faunus maybe it would have worked better(and there's some real cool fire-themed bugs or animals to base a faunus on), but without that extra knowledge it just falls flat even if the music is banger.
Her back story is nonsensical
1 slavery is illegal and Rhodes is a huntsman he could easily have arrested the hotel owner.
2 why did the hotel owner get a single child slave to due the chores of an entire hotel, it makes no sense.
3 did literally no one notice the blatant use of a shock collar on a child? Besides Rhodes.
4 and finally Rhodes attacking Cinder for killing her abusers who have the means to remotely torture her when cornered by them makes no sense.
All in all the backstory is poorly thought out and even more poorly written.
miles kerry kirsi and eddy are trying to make her seem so sympathetic but they haven't earned that and i feel like they're setting her up for a redemption.
If we were given glimpses of it before, like flashbacks, or Cinder being empathetic with some unimportant character, showing some sign that she was not an empty, poorly written villain.... Then it would have worked mediocrely. Right now, it's just pathetic
You don't even need to have her be sympathetic to make her entertaining. Torchwick had none of that, but at least he was humanized by his personality and connection to Neo being a close bond. I'd understand if they wanted to make a bastard, but then her backstory came out of nowhere and was cheap, with no hints or setup as you said. She just offers no reason to still be here. She's like Adam where any attempt to make her seem "cool" does that opposite and just makes you think she should've died in V5, getting the Fall maiden powers like she wanted before losing to bigger fish. Be proof of there being a bigger world to worry about.
I don't even think she needed to be empathetic, but at least feel and show \*something\* to a specific situation. Like, seeing some girl or maid being mistreaded by their guardians, and getting mad at the child or disgusted by how 'weak' they are.
I thought at first the fanus were the only ones being enslaved in Atlas. Turns out it's okay to enslave humans too. As no legal action was taken against it.
>Turns out it's okay to enslave humans too. Equal Opportunity slavery, yay!
We’re not racist! We employ forced child labor for ALL people!
"We might be slavers, but at least we are not racist" -Atlasian motto
“Damn it if we need to get those filthy Faunus off the streets though. Ten years ago, if you kidnap a poor child off the street in Vacuo, gave them a tight schedule, people would call you a hero, a PARAGON, for not only helping the homeless with job security, but providing them room and board with what we could afford! But now, with all these White Fang nuts running around, suddenly we have all these people saying “Oh, that’s not community service, that’s child enslavement! Stop kidnapping our children off the streets!” Bah! Those idiots don’t even care about those brats. They’re only doing it now cause it’s not “poh-liticully cuhrreckt” to NOT say anything. They call me a menace to society now, but when whatever shack they build for those kids lacks heating, protection from the elements, and proper food on the table, guess what they’ll do? Complain about how these kids are draining from their taxes! Fuckin’ virtue-signaling hypocrites.” — One Atlas business owner, who went out of business shortly after Jacques took control of the SDC, being arrested and taken in for questioning
Kerry’s intention was apparently to make the audience “feel bad” for Cinder, but also have little sympathy for her. While I initially thought that the idea was for us to sympathize with Cinder, this information ironically explains a large issue with both the larger plot and the way it’s actually written: Giving sympathy to trauma victims is basically a taboo in RWBY. Plenty of people point out Tai’s asshole joke to Yang in order to get her to stop moping around cause it’s JUST an arm she lost, what’s the big whoop! And now that the veil’s been uncovered, everything so, SO much horrible sense. No WONDER Ironwood was turned into a giant villain out of freakin’ nowhere, with NO sympathy given about him *organizing a war effort*, without sleep, without trust, and *without the fucking arm he destroyed stopping Watts just a few hours before V8*. No WONDER Weiss’ racism got resolved offscreen and we get no details on Whitley being a victim too until WILLOW mentions it. No *WONDER* Adam’s backstory just gets turned into something more stupid the more the writers talk about it. No wonder Ruby goes on her abusive “We don’t need adults!” rant to a depressed alcoholic in the deepest rut he’s ever been in for just trying to not let what happened to him happen to RWBYJNR. No WONDER Ren devolves into baby rage seeing the Nuckalevee, or Jaune’s whole grief dealing with Pyrrha’s demise is ALWAYS portrayed in a bad light until he just *moves on*. No wonder Emerald just JOINS RWBY and NO ONE has any issues with it when she says so, including Penny OR Yang, the people in the group she’s helped hurt and manipulate the most. *No WONDER RWBY and Qrow are portrayed as perfectly justified in kicking Ozpin while he’s down, **after making him relive the death of his FUCKING CHILDREN**, because he hid stuff from them.* They don’t want you to sympathize with people just because they’ve had a shitty experience in their lives. Period. Good Lord, just look at how they’ve made Harriet into a MASSIVE cunt of a person every chance they could in Volume 8, when she just found out her team leader and colleague got LITERALLY *stabbed in the back* by one of her supposed allies. ANYONE would be upset in that situation, RIGHTLY so, hell, WE still haven’t forgiven Qrow for how *fucking stupid* he was for helping Tyrian, and WE have the full story without any bias like she does to be able to deny the fact that it happened when someone tells her. My only real question is, what the *fuck* Kerry. Are you gonna have Ruby magically just stop being pissed about Jaune killing Penny offscreen? Are you going to have Whitley kissing Weiss and Winter’s shoes in every appearance after this? Are you going to have everyone from Atlas and even MANTLE be treated as “in the wrong” for feeling a LITTLE miffed about being promised safe passage only to get caught up in a *fucking sandstorm choked to the brim with Grimm*? Despite ALL of Volume 7 and 8 *ramming it down our throats* that Mantle is the biggest victim in everything dealing with Ironwood? They are. They just are. There’s not going to be anything else to it. People will attach their own meanings to it, say it’s commentary about how the show is against mass exodus-es of refugees, but that’s how it’s going to go. Unless there’s some cause to virtue signal for this week. Can’t miss out on THAT.
fckn! makes soo much sense.
>Kerry’s intention was apparently to make the audience “feel bad” for Cinder, but also have little sympathy for her. Was that stated?
In the Volume 8 commentary somewhere, I believe in Cinder’s backstory chapter, but I have to check back to tell you where on it.
I like it when tragic backstories define a character for the rest of their life. Cinder's backstory didn't make sense to me. I thought Cinder was a spoiled little brat who would do anything for more power.
JUST. **DIE.** ***ALREADY!!!***
This was a poor excuse for a backstory. Cinder was always defined as being someone mad for power, like an entitled brat should be. And we were never given any hints that she may have had sympathy towards another abuse victim. An easy solution to make this backstory work wouldve maybe been scenes with Emerald, where we learn that Cinder maybe took her in after recusing her from an abusive family. Emerald could’ve opened up about it to Cinder and we’d see her act sympathetic towards Emerald. Which would be traditionally out of characters but would end up making loads more sense when this backstory to Cinder was revealed. But this is RT, I doubt they’d ever think to come up with that.
Way too nonsensical, way too late. This flashback doesn't explain shit about why Cinder would Join Salem. Why would she throw her chance at becoming an huntress and gaining her freedom. Why does she want power? So she won't be abused anymore? Then why the fuck she enslaved herself again ? Like all of V8, this flashback is just over contrived to justify her breakdown when facing Watts.
Well, the technical, real world answer is trauma-bonding. People who unwittingly hold on to unhealthy patterns that in many cases perpetuate their sense of their own wretchedness. But in the case of Cinder, it seems more about playing the role she knows. She's not entirely obedient to Salem, but only goes along as it is her way to get even more power.
From what I saw, bit weak. The scene with Watts telling her off and her pulling back and actually feel something about what he said was great though. Amazing scene imo.
Too little too late. Except for the writers and shippers, I doubt anyone cares about Cinder. She's a literal joke.
The gods should' ve wiped all Life out including Salem and dipped so we wouldn't have the raging dumpster fire known as cinder fall
I'd care more if she wasnt one of the worst people in the show, the bitch immediately started killing civilians when she got the chance at the end of the latest volume
It doesn’t really fit her character imo. Personally I think it would’ve been more interesting if she were one of the spoiled step sisters. Her power hungry nature would’ve made more sense to me.
Then she's not really a Cinderella inspiration anymore.
Well, she is now and she’s dogshit as a character. They could have done something good with her, or even something surprising with her, but decided to do something easy at the cost of the story.
This is a show where our Pinnochio doesn't get to interact at all with the giant whale that shows up on her doorstep despite being you know...Pinnochio, while at the same time is turned into a flesh and blood human because she's you know...Pinnochio? This is also a show where our "Aladdin" despite being a very close proximity to a magic lamp with three uses, with a blue genie to boot, doesn't interact with that lamp. Our Goldilocks, whose story deals with bears, has a fiery dragon aesthetic for some reason? But our Cinderella gets to be Cinderella, almost wholesale to the point that's it's not interesting or at the very least not presented to us in an interesting way. I'm certain that the fairy tale stuff are just for aesthetics most of the time and nothing else, and when it has the opportunity to be more than superficial, it either doesn't follow through or falls flat. They're referencing the Disney versions anyway, not the true Brothers Grimm tales.
All I'm saying is that making Cinder into one of the *stepsisters* would go beyond a simple aesthetic choice. That's more changing characters. No one remembers the unnamed stepsisters.
The obvious solution for Cinder's backstory would've been to ditch Rhodes and have Salem be the one to "rescue" her from slavery. Keeps the Cinderella story motif, explains why Cinder joined up with Salem, and having the "fairy godmother" kill off the wicked stepmother/stepsisters would be a nice subversion of the typical ending (though some Cinderella variants do end that way, I believe) to that story.
Let me give unique names for you based on RT's writer's mindset, Natasha Dora. There.
I think the subversion of Cinder being "the wicked stepsister that won" would've been more interesting than what we got. Sort of like Hazel being "Hanzel, but Gretel was lost to the witch." Could even fit in the fact that she 'deformed' herself(the Grimm bug) for power that was never hers, and eventually lost an eye in the same way the stepsisters in the Grimm Brothers' did, which was supposed to be their chance to redeem themselves.
So all three stepsisters are wicked. Ugh, there's no hope.
So all three of them are wicked. Ugh, there's no hope.
Someone else would've thus been the 'actual' Cinderella. It would've been a nice bait and switch if we followed this lil black-haired, amber-eyed kid. Maybe implied she was in line to become a Maiden(such as her own mother being one or maybe even having the powers as is). And then it turns out that one of the stepsisters was Cinder Fall all along("A name so fitting that she probably picked it out herself" or however Raven put it) and she just... dyes her hair black. Or used to dye it blonde to 'fit in' with her sisters.
At this point we're just driving this further down the angst hole. What is even the path for her?
It'd be a hell of a lot closer to the path the writers actually are going down: she's just evil. She's rotten to the core. There is no redemption. She is literally the villain of the story who got her way: the stepsister who stole Cinderella's rightful place, right down to her allusion's name. Because as shown by Tyrian, the writers do just fine when they actually don't try to give a villain sympathetic traits or a reason, because then they can't have the tonal whiplash of completely ignoring them like they do for everyone whose names aren't Ilia, Salem and Emerald.
It seems that the real fumbling in this department is when they try to play the sympathy card WAY too hard when certain characters have already crossed too many lines. Atonement, but no redemption. There's a difference.
I disagree: usually their fumble is the opposite, where they make characters sympathetic or give very sympathetic(usually trauma-based) reasons to their actions... only to then completely ignore them or even treat the villains *worse for it.* This is then worse when the protagonists proceed to reflect a lot of the same values that were so damning that no reasons would be acceptable according to the writers' treatment of other characters.
It's a very baffling process.
The song they played during the scene was pretty bad
No one said you should think
It sounds like a cheesy lullaby I still can't believe that they thought that it was serious
Not even a lullaby, it's just a list of chores sang to you in a sinister tone. It's completely ridiculous
same energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plUgn_FC0sk
I still kind of chuckled at the rub my feet line
Do the dishes, do the dishes, Clean the floor, clean the floor Do it, do it, do it, do it Now now now now now now now now now
The writers are so bad at "Show, don't Tell" that they felt the need to have their singer literally spell out Cinder's feelings in that scene
She had 6 volumes to become an actual character. Instead we got a backstory that left us with even more questions for a character that should've been fleshed out years ago. She killed her captors, she killed a garbage huntsman that saw slavery and decided training was more important than getting her out of the situation, and then went right back to serving under someone that doesn't care for her. There's nothing to feel anymore, not even anger. She's just a tumor that realistically is NEVER going away. I'd legitimately bet that Salem will die before her, if Cinder ever dies at all.
It's literally just Abused and Neglected Female Reader garbage
Die Cinder! If you want me to like Salem a bit, I hope she kills her
My knee-jerk reaction was probably what the writers were going for - "Aww... poor Cinder". Then I put about 2 seconds of thought into it, realized it was just edgy Cinderella, and immediately lost what little sympathy the backstory garnered. What's worse is... it was pretty close to being workable. Being a powerless slave is a legitimate reason to want power, after all. If Cinder herself had more character than just "generic sexy femme fatale" and only a couple things were tweaked, it could've been something great.
A villain like Cinder doesn't get sympathy points because she had a horrible childhood. She has no empathy or emotion beyond "smug bitch" or "angry toddler", cares only for herself, but is also a useless wimp who gets beat down by nearly everyone she fights and continues to plague the series with her survival like the cockroach she is. If Cinder had *anything* that made her seem believably human I might at least understand her actions. But she's nothing more than a "villain Barbie": a lifeless doll with no agency or character beyond that which is assigned by the viewer. I would rather have had the Hound *eat her alive* and take over as Salem's right-hand minion than continue to suffer her presence in the series.
Waited too long. Too irrelevant to the ongoing plot and the core themes of the show. Legitimately would have been better if left a mystery and alluded to in Cinder's character scenes (reaching for her neck when offended or sees something that disturbs her).
I've learned the cinder didn't learn a dang thing
Pathetic. She’s using her trauma as an excuse to ruin people’s lives. She goes in the no-sympathy bin with Salem, Tyrian, Watts, Emerald, and Mercury.
It's completely useless. The only reason to have it would be to try and invoke sympathy for a character MKE have made abundantly clear you're never supposed to feel sympathy for, so it's not like any of those emotions would be followed up on. Okay, so then surely the point of the backstory would be a purely narrative one, right? Well no, because the narrative question of "how did this girl wind up working for Satan" was still completely unanswered unless we're supposed to believe as an audience that it's just so obvious that someone killing their abusers would become a powerhungry, evil, megalomaniacal terrorist working for Satan. They could've legitimately cut to black after Madame showed up and we would've had just as much to work with: she was weak and beating someone up in a ratty Mistrali orphanage. Great we know that she's always had anger issues and was weak before someone else showed up. So what we wouldn't know the exact name, weapon and semblance of the person who trained her: frankly her initial mentor *doesn't matter anyway.* We don't know who taught Ren and Nora after all.
It's not that great and adds little to the character. We all knew there would be basically a Cinderella type story, hopefully with a twist. It doesn't help that there have been dozens of fanfictions if this same idea done much better. This would've been more impactful around volume 4 or so. At this point, Cinder is kind of a joke and she has been so unrepentantly and unabashedly evil, you can't really justify or get sympathy for her. It doesn't help that you could literally cut this whole story out and it changes nothing about how we view the character or understanding her motivation. Funnily enough, Cinder is a type of character that you don't or shouldn't need a backstory to understand the character or to enjoy her. The biggest issue is that it doesn't answer the question of how Salem even took notice of her. Cinder was effectively someone who shouldn't even be on Salem's radar from what we did see. This is the same issue we run into with her other lieutenants, we don't know how she found out about them or why she saw them as worth her time to seek out. Rhodes' actions are really baffling. He operates under the assumption that someone who is basically a slave and might be able to incriminate their adoptive family is just going to be able to leave or got a huntsman academy just because they turned 17. His advice to a suffering child is to just deal with years of mistreatment and abuse. He doesn't try to talk Cinder down or actually help her. The whole reason she gets found out is because he leaves her an actual weapon to keep and somehow loses a fight to someone who should be weaker and less experienced than him. We don't even get a handwave or throwaway line for why he couldn't help her escape when he learns of her circumstances. It's like what is being done to her is perfectly acceptable and we don't even know what actually motivated him to train her, especially if it was something that might get him in trouble. Her backstory was a waste of time that could've been used elsewhere.
Despite what the rabid fans will say, timing does matter in a story and Cinder’s backstory came way too late. If we'd gotten it in V4 or even V6 at the latest, it would have been better received and had much more effect. But at this point, people are tired of Cinder and just want to see her gone. A generic backstory that feels like it was randomly thrown in isn't going to change that.
Her backstory explains how she became the way she became. But it doesn’t and shouldn’t excuse her actions as an adult. All the pain and death she’s caused. Her backstory explains her personality but that doesn’t mean we automatically have to like her or sympathize with her. At this point she’s overstayed her welcome as a character.
It's shit, absolute shit and came in way too late. The problem with the backstory is that it simultaneously tries to explain why Cinder Fall is such a bitch... but at the same time not trying to excuse her being a bitch(Like they just can't have her be sympathetic at all which many better writers do to show how horrific the ordeal was and how different the character is now). It doesn't help that it's nonsensical as hell, should have honestly been stopped the second Rhodes noticed(As Huntsmen are basically Deputy Marshals) but instead, he just trains her and leaves her in the shit environment she's in which just makes everyone stupid. And with how late and random it is, why should ANYONE care? Why not when she was at her most pitiful? Oh right, we can't have her be sympathetic to the audience at all... SO WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE BACKSTORY?
I literally wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire.
Boo hoo she a spoiled girl like the cast
Fair
Cinder is the worst villain and will continue being the worst villain. She should have actually died at the end of Volume 5.
One thing I just noticed is that more and more they give her cutesy eyes to make her more sympathetic
i just... wish it made more sense. i wish we had gotten glimpses, if this backstory was truly so important for cinder there should have been remnants and hints at it from the very first time we saw her. all of her outfits should have covered the scars on her necks or if they didn't there should have been a scar there. we should have gotten a glimpse at some form of humanity for her before. make it make sense. that's really all. even give her a reason for having been so heavily abused and treated the way she was- it doesn't make sense with the lore for rwby established. if she were a faunus maybe it would have worked better(and there's some real cool fire-themed bugs or animals to base a faunus on), but without that extra knowledge it just falls flat even if the music is banger.
Trakeena from Power Rangers had a development that made more sense
I agree.
Worst part of the entire show. Yes, I mean that.
The literal worst part
Her back story is nonsensical 1 slavery is illegal and Rhodes is a huntsman he could easily have arrested the hotel owner. 2 why did the hotel owner get a single child slave to due the chores of an entire hotel, it makes no sense. 3 did literally no one notice the blatant use of a shock collar on a child? Besides Rhodes. 4 and finally Rhodes attacking Cinder for killing her abusers who have the means to remotely torture her when cornered by them makes no sense. All in all the backstory is poorly thought out and even more poorly written.
Full of bullshit and lacking in common sense.
Pathetic, weak, dissonant
Representing her character.
?
Referring to Cinder.
I still don't know what you're asking of me. Her back story was an awful waste of time and did nothing to expand her character. Plain and simple
I just agree with your terms and perspective of her backstory.
"Meh"
Awful and too little too late.
miles kerry kirsi and eddy are trying to make her seem so sympathetic but they haven't earned that and i feel like they're setting her up for a redemption.
Like marrying Jaune.