>>105266059are you going to explain why Ruby being serious for two episodes breaks her character?
>>105266110You want me to criticise Ruby's writing? Sure.
Her characterisation was all over the place in the early volumes, with the only consistent feature being her heroism. She was utilised poorly or ineffectively, and often ended up feeling almost like a comic character compared to Blake, Jaune and even Weiss. She was presented as some kind of paragon of purity and idealism, but the low pressure and more comic situations throughout V1-3 meant that the character felt very static; unlike Blake and Weiss, who had troubled pasts and prejudices, the only real development she could have was to earn a better skill set as leader. In the meantime she didn't have much to do except act cute. In V4-5 the problem was kind of reversed in that the story raised the stakes, but Ruby wasn't really at the centre of the action and was often left with nothing to do while WBY did their subplots. She's often been utilised ineffectively or underutilised.
Also, this overlaps with RWBY's generally poor dialogue, but her speeches are usually poorly written for rhetoric that's meant to be inspiring or serious, and meander into territory that distracts from their intended purpose (e.g. the adults line). They're not as long as they used to be, nor as weak—the V4 letter was pedestrian and tedious, as was the V5 Oscar speech—which is an improvement, but they need to be tighter and/pr more dramatic. The best part of the Qrow dialogue was 'Right now I don't really care what you think,' because it was sharply personal and communicated her frustration with a character who she used to think was a hero.
What I will not criticise is the decision to make Ruby, who the show has been telling us is the hero and leader with a great burden to bear etc., express a range of emotions besides just being everyone's wooby.