Alt title my friend SassyUnicorn7 came up with: Haven Problems With The Plot.

The climax of a story is probably the second most important part of a story to nail after the beginning. This is the part where the audience’s adrenaline will hit fever pitch, they’ll devour the pages and binge the episodes in short order if you set the stage correctly. It’s a balancing act that RWBY has had a rough half-and-half chance of pulling off in its first four years. On one side, Volume 1′s climax doesn’t have Yang or Weiss even reach the last fight of the season, while Volume 2′s finale led to what I consider the big reason the Grimm aren’t taken seriously as a threat. At the time time however, Volumes 3 and 4 have both succeeded at making entertaining climaxes, with 3 joining together many plot threads and providing satisfying conclusions to most of them, while Volume 4 went the more personal route and made the final battle meaningful due to Ren and Nora’s history with the Nuckalavee.

Volume 5, however, tips the scale to more of a 60-40. The Battle of Haven has already become infamous in both the fandom and the wider anime community in the now eight months since it aired. With Leo Lionheart’s constant teleportation to and from a staircase leading to the “Stairway to Haven” meme, and Adam Taurus’s disaster of a performance being something I’ve written about before at length. Haven’s battle was the capstone to a season many found disappointing for their own reasons and many a more experienced critic than I have given their thoughts on it, from Blizzic to Unicorn of War.

And given how well the Battle of Beacon was received when it had much larger stakes, a larger number of arenas, and fighters… what happened when they tried doing it again for Haven, on software they knew better, with a larger, more experienced team, and less pieces to juggle at once?

That’s what I’m going to attempt to answer. In this long, drawn-out essay, I’m going to cover in my own opinion why the Haven Battle was a massive disappointment, and at the end I’ll speculate as to why this happened.

For the record, I am focusing only on the Battle of Haven itself, chapters 11 through 14. There is much more that can be said about volume 5 but I’m narrowing it down for now.

At this point, many of the failings of the Haven Battle have been brought up and done to death- poor animation across the board, a lack of any real character development, the many many many (200+ according to Floof Artist) offscreen instances of teleportation, multiple characters taking a dive-

Some more literal than others.

Regardless. My question remains, why did Haven suffer when the Beacon Battle was a success? The Battle of Beacon had such moments as Ironwood soloing a group of mechs followed by Harbinger’s scythe mode coming out for the first time, Roman and Neo’s amazing tag-team work against Ruby, a gorgeous one-take tracking shot of the Huntsman fighting the Grimm that led up to Cinder. A lot of characters got their chances to shine during the last episodes. All of this was done on Poser, a piece of tech a lot of the RT crew had to be taught to use and one that was not suited for the large-scale battle that was depicted (in fact, Poser was frequently crashing while making the last episodes of Volume 3, meaning that the episode was only ready to go with hours to spare before it had to go up for First Members). Haven, meanwhile, was made on Maya, an industry standard animation engine, meaning more people were already trained. Volume 5′s team was quite large, and it boasted the largest budget of any volume thus far. And while there had been growing pains of adapting RWBY to Maya, Volume 4 had smoothed out the errors for the most part, with Qrow Vs Tyrian fast becoming a popular fight in the eyes of many a fan and Weiss’s Volume 5 short being compared to the best of Monty’s animations.

There is no easy excuse that can be pointed to, like how Volume 1 was made in a glorified garage, Volume 3 had Monty’s death rattling everyone and Volume 4 had the growing pains of Maya. Volume 5 had a team that knew what they were doing, had proven themselves capable of the act… and still at the end let it all fall down like a house of cards in a wind turbine.

I’ll posit my own theories later on as to why I think this was the case, but we first need to set the scene of the more egregious faults people took with the Haven Battle, in no particular order. In advance, this list is loooooooong, so if you don’t wanna sit through a nerd with too much time on his hands talking about a cartoon, I’ll have a tldr at the end:

0.5. Adam’s bad outing.

Again, I’ve written about this at length (link up above), I don’t like repeating myself. Adam’s poor outing in volume 5 will haunt his character, badass Volume 6 trailer or not.

Also just to put it in here, none of the villains come out smelling like roses… except for Watts who sat this whole thing out.

1. How do you solve a problem like Weiss Schnee?

Volume 5 was horrific for the Ice Queen. After Volume 4 saw her standing up for herself and promising to reclaim her legacy (with what’s still the best song in RWBY), Weiss sets out… and immediately gets her ass kicked. She lost her own trailer fight (while set to what’s probably Weiss’s weakest vocal song so far), her ship got shot down, and right as the battle begins, Weiss gets her ass kicked by Vernal, going down before the episode is out. And when the episode itself ends…

After a whole season of losing, especially after Weiss didn’t get to fight in Volume 4, her poor outings here were icing on a bitter cake. What made it worse was that this probably had the best choreography of many of the fights during the battle, moreso than Raven vs Cinder even (barring Weiss backflipping into a pillar, that just stings). This isn’t just a Haven problem though- Weiss has consistently had a solo track record of losing or barely scraping out a win, going all the way back to the Borbatusk spar in Volume 1. Volume 5 was merely when people finally realized that Weiss cannot catch a break when she fights solo, and I worry that if she doesn’t get a good, conclusive win in Volume 6, she’ll gain a reputation as RWBY’s jobber. Someone to just look pretty as they get their ass kicked.

The even worse part? Vernal dies about twenty minutes later, meaning her kicking Weiss’s ass doesn’t even serve the purpose of setting her up as a competent fighter. Vernal only wins because Weiss needs to be down so Cinder can stab her and leave the audience on a cliffhanger/give Jaune his Semblance.

2. Expectation, Meet Reality.

“Alright Team MEH, great ready for the greatest off-screen ass-kicking in anime when we drop our mix-tape!”



Perhaps the largest problem of Haven from an enjoyment factor was the constant cutting away. It’s hard to believe how much of the Battle is happening off-screen. Qrow and Raven recreating Dante vs Vergil from DMC 3? Largely off-screen and Qrow’s not bothering Raven an episode later. Yang’s rematch with Mercury? A glorified background feature. Hazel vs Nora and Ren? If they didn’t animate it for the OP, good luck bucko. The Checkmate comeback, a continuity reference three years in the making? A bait and switch that left ash in my mouth for the entire finale.

The only thing worse than a bad fight will always be teasing a good fight and never delivering. That? Is just insulting.

3. Something In the Air (or: why is everyone an idiot)

“I think you left something up there.”

“Hmm. You know, me jumping into a combat situation involving at least one demigod without my arm was… kinda dumb. Don’t worry, I’ll know I’m safe.” “How?”

“You blew what was left of the budget last episode bitch, nothing left in the tank for a fight. Time for some Talk-No-Jutsu!”

“… damnit.”



There’s no nice way to say that there must be something in the air at Haven Academy, because a lot of people were making bad calls all fight long. I’m just gonna say “Every time the battle stops and people just stand around, not abusing these prime opportunities for sneak attacks.” Like, hey Emerald, you know how your entire thing is sneaking behind enemies and attacking them from behind? Maybe… do that sometimes? Instead of just waiting with Mercury for the conversation to be over like polite villains? I know it’s fun to watch Yang and Blake look at each other, but when that happens…

Yeah, this follows in short measure. Also again just gonna bring up the whole “Yang leaving her arm behind before jumping into a definite combat scenario.”

The Real MVI (Most Valued Idiot) Award must go for Jaune though, for using a greatsword (a weapon built for slashing)… in a piercing thrust. If Jaune had just used his normal sword this would have been a bit more understandable, but as it is? He looks like a right fool. Or to use a comic @theduncles gave me:

Alas, in canon, Jaune falls over because he’s not used to using a great-sword yet because Jaune why do you make it so hard to like you.

4. Development or the lack thereof

I know it sounds odd, but no one really gets character development outside of Yang for the entire four-parter. Hazel’s backstory gets awkwardly dropped on us (cue another instance of “Stand around and talk”) and Blake magically got over Adam so she could piledrive him, so Yang learning to tell everyone who leaves her to fuck off and die, and also proving she doesn’t need the arm is the closest we get to a real character arc concluding in the string of episodes. Meaning, there’s not many great fights, and not a lot of development to assist them.

I’m glad we spent so much time setting up Ruby’s training arc of learning CQC, it really did serve a vital purpose to the overall narrative and had a satisfying payoff and conclusion.

Ruby suffered the most from this, but Ruby suffering from a lack of character growth is tragically nothing new. Much like Weiss’s jobbing, Volume 5 was just the season where people finally had enough of Ruby’s stagnant character. While Ruby’s agency is promised to be on the list of improvements for volume 6, we’ll have to see what form this takes before I conclusively say this was a one-off mistake.

Weiss also comes in here due to her new sudden problem of over-reliance on her Summons. Because it’s not like we had just had an arc of a character last volume realizing that they were too reliant on their Semblance and it cost them a battle and they gained a grave injury-

Oh. The kicker is, Weiss doesn’t even suffer too bad from over-reliance on her Semblance. In fact, she breaks out a new Stand Persona necromancer project summon, gets to strike a pose and facilitate the most awkward mid-fight reunion of all time.

I’d like you to please just remember that for the entirety of this scene, Hazel, Emerald, Mercury and Adam have all chosen to just not shoot any of the protagonists or hit them while they’re all distracted and looking at each other. MERCURY CAN EVEN BE SEEN IN THE BACKGROUND.

An honorable mention goes to Jaune developing a martyr complex out of nowhere seemingly just so Cinder has a reason to run Weiss through. It would’ve been nice to hear Jaune dismiss himself earlier in the season to set up him being low-key suicidal.

5. Low stakes don’t make for good cooking

The most important battle at Haven isn’t between RWBY and their nemeses, or even between a hero and a villain. Instead, the Maidenbowl/Battle of the Bitches is fought by a renegade Huntress turned Maiden, and a genocidal psychopath turned Maiden.

Let me ask you a question. Why do we care? No, seriously, why do we care which bad guy turned Maiden gets the Relic? Either way, the good guys will lose unless someone then takes out the victor. We don’t really care who wins between Raven and Cinder, which lowers the stakes as a dire consequence. Most people even predicted that Raven’s experience with her powers would mean the fight would be a win for Raven. And ultimately, Raven had to be the one to fight Cinder since thanks to the poor power-scaling of RWBY, Raven was the only character with a good chance of taking Cinder on and not melting in the first half minute.

Adding to this, Weiss going down in the first part of the battle didn’t even raise a death flag for many. Being a title character and mid-character arc, nearly everyone immediately guessed that Weiss would be fine and that Jaune’s Semblance would unlock to save her. (It’s been said before that Ren being the one stabbed would have worked better since he has less plot armor than Weiss)

6. The teleporting

I don’t have anything to add here, anything I could say is better off shown to you and Floof Artist did an hour long video showing all of the off-screen teleportation that occurs in the finale episodes.

7. And we care because…?

Long story short, we as an audience don’t have reason to care for Haven or its fate. We don’t know it like we knew Vale, we’ve barely seen the city outside of a few 2d stills and one solid scene with Qrow, none of our main characters have a personal stake in the fight and the few heroes who are from Mistral don’t mention it. Comparatively, we knew Beacon well, had spent three whole seasons in Vale and got to see the city. We cared for the city and thus it falling meant something. With Haven, we don’t have that, and as a consequence we don’t care.

So, long story short:

A lot of the villains, especially Adam, lose a lot of their fear factor because of poor showings.

Haven finally marks the point where Weiss’s bad solo outings have begun harming her character. Haven has too many moments that cut away from exciting and teased matches, presumably to save what little budget they had left after the WBY shorts and the Belladonna attack. So many characters make poor decisions tactically, to say nothing of how much standing around everyone does in their utter refusal to fight. The weak fighting has to content with weak development as well, with Yang being the only person to finish her character arc in any of the four episodes (while Jaune learns he’s suicidal and Raven suddenly becomes a coward). Why should we care about the Maiden battle when it’s between two villains who both want the Relic for nefarious purposes? Poor stakes and bad attempts at cliffhangers mean the stakes never raise and your pulse never gets going. Why was no-one checking over the animation to make sure everyone stayed in the same places? We as an audience haven’t built up an attachment to Haven and Mistral like we did with Beacon in Volumes 1-3, so the stakes of the battle are shot in the foot since we likely don’t care for Haven’s fate.

So, what happened?

We ultimately don’t know why exactly Haven turned out so bad. So I will say that if you don’t care for a glorified fan theory, feel free to leave, the rest of the post won’t entertain you, but thank you for reading this far none the less.

My opinion on why the Battle of Haven was a massive disappointment on every storytelling level I can think of comes down to one idea.

We weren’t meant to have the Battle of Haven this year.

At RTX 2018, after showing off the Adam Character Short for the first time, Miles Luna had this to say:

What that said to me, at least, was that the Weiss, Blake and Yang shorts were much more costly and labor intensive than ever expected, and by the time CRWBY realized this, the shorts had already eaten a chunk of the budget. While not a disaster on its own, since Volume 5 had three times the budget of volume 4, the time and resources spent on the trailers were time and resources that could have gone into the Volume proper. I love the Weiss trailer fight, but I’d have happily sacrificed it to see the Battle of Haven get more polish and a few less cut-away fight scenes.

Later on in the panel, Miles notes that the new streamlined writing process meant that they were on chapter 13 of Volume 6 by the time of the panel, whereas by RTX 2017 (held on July 7th), they were only on chapter 8 of the volume (for the record, Kerry revealed that they finished in October, several days after Volume 5 began airing). Additionally, the Haven battle employs many cost-saving measures that shot the battle in the foot; for example, many of the cutting and teleportation problems could be solved by simply having some fights enter other parts of the Academy, and speaking of, many of the fights being cut away from scream of attempts to try to avoid undue strain on the budget that was being siphoned away for the Maiden battle.

In contrast, the Belladonna Manor battle feels like a more proper and fitting climax for the Volume. The battle had been teased several times throughout the early portion of Blake’s chapters, with Ilia warning Blake to leave Menagerie and the tense atmosphere of Ghira’s press conference. Things are obviously building up to a confrontation, and it was obvious that this was a significant time sink for the CRWBY- Kim was assigned to making the gunchucks a glorious reality, while the lighting and technical teams kicked into overdrive to animate the burning house. Barring CRWBY’s irritating reliance on cliffhangers, the back half of Blake’s arc in Volume 5 is very solid and well put-together, and the arc as a whole flows much better on a binge watch. Story-wise, Ilia’s plot was one of the largest plot threads set up in the shorts, which seems at least to me that it was obviously a large focus in pre-production. It would also explain why Menagerie had so many scenes set outside in the settlement while Mistral’s scenes were largely confirmed to The House. If Mistral’s battle was going to be held until Volume 6, then time could be spent establishing Menagerie now in advance of the battle, while Volume 6 would be spent establishing Mistral and making the audience care, alongside planned arcs like the discarded RNJR subplot, potentially a real, proper training arc for all of RNJR (they had nothing to do for ten straight episodes and that sickens me) and a chance to explore Mistral’s criminal underworld.

Finally, I feel like RWBY’s departure from each other was setting up a three-act story of them coming back together, with the Battle of Haven being the cornerstone for their reunion (since, you know, Beacon’s battle was in the third season, put the Mistral battle in the sixth season, right?). Weiss and Yang would have likely joined back up with RNJR by the end of the original Volume 5, while Blake would have succeeded in saving Menagerie from the White Fang, thus giving her the confidence to help in Mistral when word came of an attack being planned on Haven. However, Volume 5 hastily course-corrects on this due to the backlash the writing team had gotten from a perceived lack of focus due to sharing four main plots (well, three, Yang as usual was treated as a glorified side-character), and forces RWBY back together at the end of the volume with a RWBYunion that had far less impact that I and many others hoped it would.

Thus, this is why I feel the Haven battle was forced in with a crowbar to facilitate RWBY’s reunion ahead of schedule due to CRWBY over-reacting to the backlash. After three large and expensive trailers, not to mention the large scale of the Belladonna Manor battle, Haven suffers from a fraction of the budget it deserved. A fact that is painfully shown with the anticlimax fights that were shown, and the amount of disappointing cutaways for the fights that weren’t. Even if it was always the plan to have the Haven battle be in volume 5, no doubt it would have flowed better had it been given more time as part of volume 6 instead of sharing the stage as it did. We can only hope that for Volume 6, the crew have learned their mistakes, and that any potential large-scale fights in Atlas, Vacuo and beyond are more successes like Beacon than flops like Haven.

Thank you for reading.