Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation back again with The RWBY RPRT! So if it wasn't obvious, I'm a couple of weeks behind on RWBY, so this installment is discussing episode seven of RWBY Volume 3 and I'll get to episode eight soon after. Without further ado, let's dive on in!
Episode Seven of Volume 3 is titled 'The Beginning of The End' and instead of our mainstay heroes, this episode is focused on series villain Cinder and her actions from recruiting Emerald and Mercury to the events that led to where we currently are in the third volume. Welp, I just summed up this entire episode in one sentence, hope you guys enjoyed this installment of the RWBY RPRT! Til next time, I'm The Shaman of Animation and I'll catch you all next time for Episode Eight of Volume 3!
...Okay, you got me. I wasn't gonna leave you guys hanging like that...
Jokes aside, the episode begins with one of many vignettes of a black screen with Cinder talking. In this one, she says to someone that she wants to be strong and to be feared; and when it ends we're treated to a younger version of Cinder talking to a younger version of Emerald, I don't know HOW much younger they are, but they're definitely younger than they currently are in the series. Cinder is impressed by Emerald's skills as a thief as she witnessed the green haired girl steal money from a man right in front of his face, and the man smiled at her the whole time while doing so. Cinder eventually convinces Emerald to join her cause, showing her stuff that she wouldn't believe, wanting to take her on as an apprentice, and promising that if she joined her, she'd never go hungry again...and I'm sure everyone at this point has made a Lion King reference so I'm not even gonna bother...
One Vignette later, Cinder and Emerald meet Mercury who is pretty messed up, There is some DARK implications in this scene. From what I'm guessing is Mercury's house burning down, to Mercury's beat up face and bandaged bloody legs; and when Cinder asks for Marcus Black, Mercury's father (Who's an assassin by the way) Mercury refers to the downed corpse of his papa and to take it a step further, Cinder says "We saw your Fight from the Tree Lines" meaning that Mercury and his dad had a fight to the death that ended in Mercury killing his father. And this scene ends in Cinder recruiting Mercury for her cause. All this combined with nice atmospheric music makes for one of the darkest scenes in RWBY to date.
We get another vignette, this time Emerald telling Cinder that they don't need Mercury and that they can handle this all on their own, which follows up with Cinder laying her pimp hand down and reminding her of her place. She seemingly makes her way into some city and Mercury makes the suggestion that for her to learn about the city, she would have to ask "The Rats". This leads to her meeting Roman Torchwick.
We're next treated to a scene where Cinder is trying to convince Adam to get the White Fang to aid her in her plans. Adam almost immediately turns her down, not wanting to get his men involved in a goal for humans and with no other choice, Cinder and her team leaves Adam's tent. Two very big things to note in this scene is first during their conversation, Cinder makes note of an associate of hers that she's working with (Keep this in mind for later on in the episode), the second thing is that when Cinder and CO. leave, Adam heads out of the tent and is asked about the matter by none other than Blake. Adam tells her it isn't important and that they should get ready for the train that's coming their way, effectively tying this scene of the episode with The "Black" Trailer way back when before RWBY ever premiered.
We get another vignette with Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury making plans, those plans involve a person and we cut to the woods/a meadow/I don't know what exactly it is it's just a random location; and we're treated to the sight of Amber, the previous Fall Maiden and she's on a horse peacefully strolling around the place. She stops when she spots a little girl who's fallen off her bike and is crying. Amber does what pretty much any person would do in this situation and gets off her horse to try to console the child. What Amber doesn't know is that she's being tricked thanks to Emerald's Semblance which allows her to make people see and hear things that aren't there. With Amber still preoccupied, Emerald tries a sneak attack, in doing so kicking up dirt which alarms Amber that she may be ambushed and soon after a fight breaks out. Initially Emerald and Mercury try to jump the Maiden but they have no luck, it's during this fight that Mercury's pants legs are burnt off revealing that he has robotic legs.
There's a Fullmetal Alchemist joke to make here somewhere, I'm sure of it...
While the two henchmen initially have the advantage in the battle, Amber quickly turns the tide by going full Storm and summoning the weather to attack them: casting lightning bolts, creating giant gusts of wind, even freezing leaves and throwing them at her foes. She manages to hold them off until Cinder jumps into the fray and while Amber puts up a hell of a fight, she is eventually overpowered by the three of them.
With Amber's Aura depleted and her beaten, Emerald and Mercury hold her down while Cinder puts on a white glove and when she was close she summoned a leech-like creature from the glove and it attached itself to Amber's face, sucking Amber's power away and transferring it to Cinder. I brought this up back in 'Round One' but seriously, kudos to the animation team for really stepping up this Volume. That close up of Amber's face before the leech goes to her face is amazing and you do get a real sense of fear from Amber in that scene. Before Cinder can take all of Amber's power away, she is stopped by Qrow running in and stopping it half way. This would explain why Mercury was afraid of Qrow when during Qrow's fight with Winter back in episode three of the volume but it doesn't explain why Qrow doesn't remember seeing any of the three and telling Ozpin about it when he makes it to Beacon. Cinder I get cause she did obscure her face before he could get a good look at it, but I'm pretty sure he saw Emerald and Mercury when he swung at them or when he was charging at them to save Amber. What? Did he get hammered when he was trying to hide Amber and just forgot to tell anyone about them?
Whatever, I won't think too much on it. We have our final Black Screen Vignette of the episode when Cinder is talking to who I'm assuming is the associate she was talking about when talking to Adam earlier in the episode. She's describing the feeling of having half of Amber's power and she tells the associate that she will claim what is theirs before thanking him. Now with this associate, we can make some assumptions here that Cinder is not the head honcho of the series and that there might be someone out there more dangerous than her. We can also assume that whatever it is Cinder and her associate have in mind, it involves this dark portal of nightmare above the four title characters here:
That similar type of spiraling portal of doom appeared when Cinder used the glove to summon the leech and take half of Amber's power:
This portal keeps reappearing, whether it's in the show opening or in the actual show itself and I'm convinced it plays a part in the motives of the villains. But let's continue on with the actual episode. So we cut back to the White Fang in what has to be after the events of the Black Trailer and a White Fang member is reassuring Adam that Blake, who at the end of the Black Trailer, actually left the White Fang, will be found. Adam wants to focus on other plans but he will have no such luck as gunshots and punching effects are heard and when he looks outside, he sees that the White Fang camping ground was WRECKED; and she once again offers a plan for them to join forces, this time she offers dust and Money.
We're now taken to the present, after the events of the previous episode 'Fall' have taken place. Some medics grab Mercury put him on a stretcher and took him on a ship to be taken back to a doctor in Mistral...a ship that Cinder is on and a disguised Neo is flying. They head back to their base of operations where they see via television that due to Yang's action getting a rousing negative response from people around the world, Grimm activity has spiked heavily (Grimm respond to negative emotion for those who don't know). Now Cinder and Emerald plan on heading back to continue their matches while Mercury lays low until the end of the tournament.
Beginning of The End is a great episode that shows the events of Cinder's plans and actions throughout the show and just how those actions have taken us here. Way back in RWBY Volume 2 review, I gave Cinder flack as a villain, but, to echo off my review of 'Fall', I strongly believe now that this episode does a tremendous job of showing why we should be threatened of Cinder as a villain. There are two gripes I have with this episode in particular. The first is while it is a great episode; I went in this episode hoping to get more backstory on Cinder. It shows what she's done to get where she currently is in the show, but it doesn't go into depth as to why. I know she wants to be powerful and to be feared, but why is it that she wants that? What happened in her life that made her choose that particular path? These questions I have no problem waiting to get an answer for as this episode did do a great job of making me more interested in Cinder a a character.
My second gripe is an unpopular opinion: Jessica Nigri. Now, I'm sure she is a very nice woman, and from what I've seen, she's a hell of a cosplayer. But she's...well...not great of a voice actress. It's something I've thought since Volume 2 but I've just never voiced it. She only has one kind of tone in her voice acting and because of that, her performance falls short whenever she has to sound intimidating, or cunning. It just comes off as "oooh, listen to how evil and untrustworthy I sound". But hey, I'm just a nerd on the internet, what do I know about Voice Acting, Am I right?
But that's all for this installment of The RWBY RPRT Folks, Keep an eye out as I plan on having Episode 8 of Volume 3 out soon. Til next time, I'm The Shaman of Animation.
Take Care...
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