Because this kinda needs to be made. There’s a lot of lines in this show that have been interpreted in strange and weird ways that I feel we need to clear up the misconceptions about. So instead of scattering them through various meta-posts, let’s clear them all up at the same time. So, if you’re willing to come along, let’s begin:

“Bad Father Taiyang” Part 1: Yang raised Ruby

The Misconception:

Now, this is probably the top one I see around the place. And I’m not trying to take anything away from Yang here, she definitely took on a Mothering role in Ruby’s life, a lot of people take this to an extreme. I’ve seen people thinking that Yang would “obviously be good at cooking, having to cook for herself and Ruby” and various statements to that effect.

To put it simply, when Yang says that Taiyang “shut down” in Burning The Candle, they think it meant a full-on, Apathy-like cessation of willpower. That Yang had to take on primary caregiver role.

The Proof Against It:

But that’s disproven only a few lines later. When Yang left the house with Ruby to find her mother, she explicitly says that she “waited for Dad [Taiyang] to leave the house”. Taiyang was still clearly taking care of them, physically at very least.

And even beyond that, Yang and Ruby hold no ill-will against Taiyang. Their relationship is clearly a loving one, with Taiyang falling asleep at Ruby’s beside in Volume 3. And before anyone says that this is a Retcon, in the latter half of Volume 2, we’re shown this good relationship when the girls speak of him after he sends them Zwei in the mail. A package from him is considered something to “cheer her [Ruby] up”.

Do you really think they’d have such a relationship if he was emotionally or caregiving-ly absent? No, because that would be an abusive relationship, which is kind’ve RWBY’s speciality in recognizing.

Even on a meta-level, they cast Burnie Burns, a man who epitomizes a “good father” to the RT community and to the company itself as Taiyang. That doesn’t seem like the casting they’d do for a bad father.

What The Line Really Meant:

For a period of time, Taiyang shut down emotionally. He became depressed. While he cared for his children’s physical needs, he neglected their emotional needs. This is something that clearly has affected Yang, putting the burden of Ruby’s emotional needs on her (a burden she has still helped shoulder since then, though is clearly learning to let go of recently), but not really affected the two girls’ relationship with their father. Taiyang recovered from his depression, and has been an admirable father since then. Like every parent in RWBY, he’s a person, and he’s made mistakes in his parenting, but that doesn’t make him a bad parent.

Yang was Retconned!

The Misconception:

This, technically, can also fall under “Bad Father Taiyang”, but is usually mostly addressed at Miles and Kerry.

I’ve seen people saying that Yang’s fighting ability was retconned into “uses her semblance too much” and “dumb fighter who relies on her power”. People dissecting the pre-Volume 4 fight scenes for evidence of Yang being a smart fighter. Calling this a “retcon” (Retroactive Continuity: when a previous established fact is altered by the writer later in the story).

This all stems from a conversation Yang had with Taiyang, in which he says “Do you realize that you used your semblance to win every fight after the qualifiers?”

The Proof Against It:

Holy crap is this taking Taiyang out context.

Straight up, the lines directly before this were:

Yang: “Let me guess: ‘I was sloppy.’” Taiyang: “-laughs- No. You were predictable. And stubborn. And maybe a little boneheaded.”

It’s pretty clear from the preceding lines that Taiyang isn’t talking about her fighting style. After some talk about her semblance, and how it won’t always save her, the conversation shifts into one about Raven, her stubbornness, and her similarities with Yang.

During which, Taiyang says that “You both act like the easiest way to tackle an obstacle is through it. That strength is all that matters in a fight.”

Which leads us to:

What The Line Really Meant:

I plan on making a post about this, but Strength is at the core of Yang’s character arc. Not just physical strength at that, but the word that most people would use here is Power.

Yang is person who was born strong. Not just physically, even. Her core character trait, beyond anything else, is that Yang Xiao Long might get knocked down, but she’ll rise stronger than before. It’s her semblance; her connection to fire is evocative of phoenix motifs; hell the song “I Burn” calls her a Super Saiyan, who have “get stronger from being beaten down” as actual trait of their species.

But Strength, Power isn’t everything. We hear this in one of the first lines of the show, from Salem herself: There Will Be No Victory In Strength.

And that’s the point of the conversation with Taiyang. He explicitly compares her to Raven, who thinks Strength, not just physical and magical but also strength in skill and intelligence, is everything. And Yang has kinda been following that philosophy. She’s been using her strength to try and brute-force situations. We see this in the Yellow Trailer, as she grabs Junior by the balls in order to try extract information from him. We see this in the fight with Neo, when she switches up her fighting style multiple times, but can’t actually beat her. We see this in the fight with Mercury, where Cinder predicted she’d counter Mercury’s fake attack rather than dodge or block.

But this is where Taiyang hammers home the point that Yang’s strength isn’t everything. There are times to use strength, and times to find alternate solutions. And Yang has taken that to heart. The point of the Bandit fight is that while she predicts it, she doesn’t start it, giving her opponents the option to walk away. When Mercury grabs her arm, rather than attack him and get caught up fighting, she lets it go. When she arrives down in the Vauilt, she deconstructs Raven’s motivations so completely that by the time she shoulder-checks her mom on the way past, Raven’s already been defeated.

And when she goes up against Adam, someone who believes in strength just as much as Raven, she ultimately beats him by not using her strength until she’s taken away his.

“Bad Father Taiyang” Part 2: Moping

The Misconception:

Taiyang tells Yang to “stop moping”. This means he isn’t taking her PTSD seriously/he doesn’t understand her true problem/he’s a bad father/Miles and Kerry think PTSD is just moping.

The Proof Against It:



See my first point on why Taiyang isn’t a bad father and why he wouldn’t be given such a harsh line unless there was some truth to it.

But on the Miles and Kerry interpretation, they have honestly been doing a fantastic job at portraying what PTSD is actually like. Some credit goes to Barbara as well, but PTSD in RWBY is portrayed as something you have to learn to live with, not overcome or “get better” from. Sure, you can mitigate it, but it’ll unfortunately always be with you.

Yang didn’t “get over” her PTSD by being told to stop moping. Because Taiyang was not referring to her PTSD.

What The Line Actually Meant:

Yang was moping.

See, Yang’s not just suffering from PTSD in Volume 4. She’s also suffering from heartbreak.

Her best friend, the person she was closest to outside of her family, the person she may even have realized that she was in love with, had just left her like Yang feared she would.

Like we’ve established, Yang is all about getting up when she gets knocked down. That’s at the core of her character. I honestly don’t think the missing arm and the PTSD would have kept her back home as long as it did on it’s own. Because we all know how a Xiao Long reacts to heartbreak (See: Taiyang “shutting down”).

But also because Adam straight-up told us that Blake leaving hurt more than losing an arm did.

What do I mean by that?

See, the whole point of the Adam fight is to explain to Blake what Yang wants to say but knows she can’t. The person Adam pretended to be is Yang, even if he doesn’t know it. Every line he says after he takes off the mask is something that actually applies to Yang’s feelings towards Blake.

“People hurt me long before we met” = Raven’s abandonment, Summer’s death

“But no-one hurt me quite like you. You didn’t leave scars, you just left me alone” = Blake left Yang after someone else had left her a scar (the arm)

“She made a promise to me once” = Literally paralleling the promises Blake has made to both people

Blake knows Yang and Pretend!Adam are alike. In semblance, in personality, it’s why she fears Yang going bad at the Vytal Tournament. And it’s why Adam saying that “no-one hurt me quite like you” triggers Blake’s realisation of why Yang doesn’t want Blake to protect her. Because it would leave her alone.

Yang can handle anything life throws at her besides Blake leaving. So when Yang was left moping after being left behind by the woman she loves, who better to point out she was moping than the person who’s been through the same thing twice?

The Birds

The Misconception:

And finally, the subject that began this rant of mine. The revelation to our heroes that Raven and Qrow can turn into birds.

People, quite confusing, take this to mean that our heroes are rendered suspicious of Ozpin because… he gave Qrow and Raven magical powers? They decry it as not really making sense, a false way to create tension between our heroes and Ozpin.

But maybe there’s a reason why it doesn’t make sense?

What The Line Really Meant:

Just look at the wording people. “What you did to Qrow and my mother”, “What Oz did to my brother and me”.

Raven implied that Ozpin gave them magic, placed this burden on them, without their consent. And Yang was rightfully pissed at the idea of such a thing. The rest of the group are taken aback at such an idea, because if it can happen to Ozpin’s previous generation of followers, it could happen to them.

You see Yang only reacts when Qrow firmly states that “We made a choice, we wanted this”. It’s a look of shock. Raven lied to her.

And that’s why she tells Ozpin “No more lies, no more half-truths”. Raven has placed doubt in her mind, but both sides have lied to her at this stage. The only way to make sure she’s on the right side is if one of them isn’t lying to her, feeding her half-truths and lies of omission.

Which is why she takes it so hard when he omits the truth again. Down in the Vault, Yang made her choice. She chose Ozpin over her mother, permanently. There’s no going back from what Yang said to her. And then Ozpin omits the truth again, about the Relic, and this not only makes Yang question if she made the right choice, but reminds her that if she’s made the wrong one, she can’t go back on it. That’s she’s sacrificed any hope of a relationship with her mother for Ozpin, a man who can’t stop lying to her.

Conclusion:

I hope I’ve helped clear up some misconceptions for you guys, and made your RWBY-watching experience less confusing and misinformed. If you liked this, please reblog and share these corrections, so that the fandom no longer gets caught up on these moments.

These are just the misconceptions that I’ve been to dredge up from my memory on a Sunday night, so if I spot any more I’ll add them in later reblogs.