RWBY Season 3

By: Robert Murphy

Those of you who have been with RWBY right from the get go know that the story is about many lovable characters who are attending Beacon Academy for hunters and huntresses. Everything is fun, bubbly and only gets serious for brief moments during the series where Ruby Rose and her friends must combat some upstart trouble makers. This season however follows a much darker path and the time for being kids must be set aside in order to combat the growing threat hidden away in the shadows, until now. 

The start of the series begins much as you would expect it to as Ruby and her team prepare for the Autumn festival and compete with classmates as well as other cools in competitions that test their skills as huntsmen and huntresses. This whole ordeal capitalizes on perhaps the most captivating aspects for the show and that is it's fight scenes. A Pokemon style battle arena is brought forth and the stages vary with each and every match up so you will see beach levels, mountain levels, forest levels and all of them coming with their own environmental challenges to face while the teams are fighting one another. All the fights themselves are spectacular and show off the skills the Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang have all acquired since they joined the school and became teammates. Their teamwork being one of the best parts to see as they combine all of their skills to make excellently choreographed attacks against the opposing teams. 

This setup also sets the stage for many characters to appear from team RWBY's respective pasts. Ruby and Yang's Uncle Qrow (pronounces Crow) makes his first appearance and despite his outward drunk/smart ass behavior, he will be a major player in revealing all of the evil activity going on behind the scenes for the past two seasons. Weiss also gets an unexpected welcome from a former family member when her sister Winter comes to Beacon alongside of General Ironwood and his massive army of robot soldiers. She is just as cold as Weiss was when viewers first met her but later it is revealed that she left home just like Weiss did and followed an unorthodox path, in their father's opinion anyways. Lastly, we learn a great deal more about Blake's past when the White Fang makes their own moves on Beacon this season. Their leader Adam having a long teased history with her that now has come back to haunt her. 

While this all may seem like great editions to the story that will drive home a much more serious plot line, many of the ideas get muddled along the way as all of this information tries to be crammed into the story in progress. Qrow is not just in town to see his family as I said and he in turn reveals what Cinder Fall and the rest of her cronies have been trying to achieve. The end game seems to be nothing but true chaos for Cinder but in order to get there she needs more power, even more the impress amount she already wields. This ends up coming from a bizarre story about four legendary huntresses that were thought to be nothing but an old fairy tale. It would seem that it was anything but that however and when it comes time for it, an ultimate sacrifice must be made by one of the shows main characters in order to acquire this power. The real issue with this turn of events though was how quickly it gets thrown into our story and then must be accepted as fact. 

There are more signs of these thrown at the wall ideas when Qrow reveals more about Yang's history. It would seem that somehow he can speak to his sister (Yang's mother) who was presumed dead and yet must be in some other plane of existence? It really makes no sense and little time is spent exploring what this could all mean for Yang's character down the road. It seems very crucial to question this because by the end of this season Yang has gone through quite the ordeal, she no long is the same smiling ass kicker she has been this whole time and its hard to see how she will recover after everything that happens to her. Other instances of thrown around ideas are all too common, between Winter revealing a hidden power she and Weiss possess and the odd abusive love story between Blake and Adam and Ruby possess some hidden power herself too by the end. There is truly just far too much going on this season and far too little time to get through it all properly. 

What remained rock solid thus far was the overall story that was established after last season with Cinder and her team preparing to unleash all out war on Beacon. Her plans devastated not only Beacon but our main characters too and in almost George R.R. Martin fashion, all bets are off. Cinder effectively causes untold despair for just about everyone which is what attracts a massive amount of Grimm to the city in all shapes and sizes. This includes the biggest Grimm we've ever seen to date but the overall tone shift proved to be an interesting one to say the least. It offered a new layer of depth that I didn't expect to come from a show with such a light hearted feel to it, heck other shows like this don't even go this dark when it comes to the world being taken over by some evil force so it's truly something to be admired. 

By the time RWBY 's third season comes to a close there is a great deal of information to digest and that isn't necessarily a good or a bad thing. There are plenty of new ideas floating up in the air but none of it is really concrete by the end of the story. However, Cinder Fall and the rest of her team have proven to be a force to be reckoned with after causing untold death and despair for our main characters, offering up a different experience for this season that I did not see coming from an anime like this. So overall the future for RWBY can truthfully go down a very solid path if all the ideas brought up this season get more time to grow and develop, but only time will tell if that will happen.

Good:

- A much darker plot line than I ever thought to come from RWBY

- Top notch fighting scenes remain throughout

- Solid trademark humor the show is known for

Bad:

- New plot lines are all over the place

- Interesting ideas but so much left unexplained or ignored on the way to the end

Scully Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Game of Thrones (Season 3)

Zach Goodier

In anticipation of the end of Season 4 tomorrow, I figured I better make sure I’m up-to-date on our GoT reviews before reviewing the entirety of Season 4.  So here’s our season 3 review, obvious ***SPOILERS*** included.

If you give an aspiring Queen an army... She's going to want a throne to go with it.

As we left off in Season 2, Dany is learning to become more assertive, and with the help of Jorah is becoming more of a queen every day.  Back in Westeros, The war is dragging on, as Robb continues to win on the field, but starts to have trouble amongst his own ranks.  Further south, the Lannisters still hold King’s Landing, but are struggling to contend with continuing opposition, and even their allies are out to undermine them.  Stannis, still reeling from the Battle of Blackwater, licks his wounds, and struggles to keep himself in the game, despite being the rightful heir to the throne.  And north of the Wall, the Night’s Watch struggles to contend with the White Walkers, as well as the savage Wildlings.  All in all, the struggle for the Iron Throne, and the dangers to the far north, are only escalating.

 

We really get to know more about the Wildling clans this season.

For Dany, the season is all uphill, with her dragons, as well as her growing reputation, she starts to become more of an actual leader this season.  Her cause of liberating the slaves gives her a sense of nobility, and her charisma is almost as potent as dragonfire.  However, I found the season for Dany to be somewhat less interesting than the other storylines, particularly after she obtains the Unsullied army.  Ser Barristan Selmy appears again, adding some new life to Dany’s story, as well as returning a favorite side-character of mine to the show again.  Towards the end of the season her story picks up again, with the siege of Yunkai and the introduction of the character of Daario.

Mance Raider, the King Beyond the Wall.

For Robb, the season is full of frustration, as he keeps trying to engage the Lannisters, only finding they have fallen back, murdering and pillaging everything they can along the way, leaving dead northerners behind at Harrenhall in order to further frustrate Robb.  Following his mother’s betrayal by setting Jaime Lannister free, Robb starts to struggle with the difficult position of not killing Jaime, and the resentment fostered amongst many of his supporters for it.  The growing tension amongst his own ranks gives Robb no end of difficulty, and things come to a head later in the season when one of his lords outright violates Robb’s orders and takes matters into his own hands.  While I sympathize with Robb’s problems, I believe his approach was far too soft, and that his lords are right to question his ability when Robb could lose his father, and see the bodies of murdered Northmen and still not exact vengeance for those loses.  It makes Robb start to lose face, and altogether lose the support of his own men.

Robb has an increasingly difficult season, trying to find justice in a world without mercy can be very difficult, and the enemies never play fair.

Since I mentioned Jaime, I should say that this is really Jaime’s breakout season, as he struggles to get back to King’s Landing to return to his beloved Cersei.  Despite the disturbing nature of his incest relationship, Jaime really starts to develop as a character this season, really challenging some of the conceptions we’ve had about him from the beginning of the series.  He doesn’t necessarily redeem himself, but he certainly does a good job of walking a fine line between hero and villain in the story, especially in a bath scene with Brienne where to tells the story of how he killed the Mad King.  I won’t spoil details, but it’s a standout scene where he really starts to open up, and we finally see the man underneath the armor.

Jaime doesn't have a very good season... But it's at his lowest that he really starts to shine.

Jon Snow is struggling to survive north of the Wall, and Ygritte proves to be one of his greatest challenges yet, in more ways than one.  She challenges Jon, and helps validate the warning Aemon gave to Jon way back in season one.  This really starts to give some complexity to Jon, who now faces the cruelty of his own vows.  While I left off after season 2 believing that the White Walkers were finally on the warpath (I hadn’t started reading at that point), there really isn’t that much about them this season, aside from a significant role later on when we finally find out that they do have some sort of weakness.

Robb's allies and relatives, the Tully's.

The most discussed moment from season 3 is without doubt the Red Wedding.  I won’t go into it in this review, besides mentioning that it is one of the greatest twists/shocking moments of television history.  It’s not just the event itself, but the brutality of it all, as you are reminded that this world and story takes no prisoners.  If you’ve seen it, then you know just how brutal it all is, even making changes to the story to keep things fresh and exciting for even those that have read the books.

Ygritte is Jon Snow's biggest test yet.

Overall, season 3 keeps the trend going of turning up the dial, throwing twists and turns your way, all the while fooling you into believing you have this show all figured out.  It’s this tightrope walk between defying expectations and still giving the audience something to go on.  It’s a dangerous line that few shows have ever thought to walk, and none have successfully done.  George R. R. Martin has earned a reputation as a literary sadist in the way he writes, but if this story was only about “bad” guys winning, it would still fall into the same predictable patterns as any other show.  It’s not knowing where or when the twists will come that keeps this show so interesting, and the depth of character makes it all stay fresh and exciting, never formulaic or dull.  Like the rest of the show, the complexity and depth make it all so incredible to watch, and a masterpiece in modern television.

Good:

-More incredible story and characters, some new, mostly old.

-More twists and turns than you know how to cope with.

-A continually rich, visceral world that captivates with its scale, intrigue, and utter brutality.

Bad: 

-Not really a bash on the show… but ‘dem feels, bro.

Scully Rating:  10 out of 10