Fandom is a culture that is constantly changing. It’s a culture effectively built around self-sustaining itself through fanart, music videos, fanfiction and discussion theories about the content the fandom is built around to tide them over until the next big release. Taking the RWBY fandom for example, it’s a fandom that’s really only alive for less than two fifths of the average year, from October to January when the volume itself airs. The rest of the year, RWBY’s fandom has to keep itself afloat through self-generation of ideas and the sharing of the aforementioned means of content to tide people over until October comes back around and the season starts anew. Headcanons and fan theories become commonplace and can become exponentially more popular than ever intended thanks to the gap in seasons giving it time to form and gain weight as a theory before canon can prove it wrong.



What that long period of downtime means is that you can see previously loathed characters come back from the brink and gain a lot of fandom support and approval in the turn of a season. Or alternatively, popular characters can take a swan-dive in popularity, being reduced to joke status that they never recover from. People who swore up and down that “this character is trash and I don’t care what they do with them” suddenly next hiatus are on the other side of the trenches. One season can do a lot for a character in either direction is what I’m saying.

Because that’s what’s happened the past two years to Adam Taurus.

Adam after Volume 5 was a turbulent wreck of a character. Humiliated at the end of the season and forced to run with his tail between his legs, while his character lost much of the appeal that it had garnered over the prior four volumes, making him resemble a whiny child LARPing as a doomsday villain. It was a pathetic display for his character, one so infuriating it inspired me to begin writing analysis essays after a heated Discord discussion, and that essay struck a note with many of the people who read it and agreed with the contents therein, especially in regards to how much Haven damaged Adam’s threat factor. People simply weren’t scared of him appearing like they were prior to his smack from Blake, several comments even derisively writing off Blake and Yang’s rematch against Adam in advance because “they made him job before, they’ll do it again.”

And yet interestingly, within the span of a year, the tides partially turned. With Volume 6 Adam wasn’t widely derided as a joke anymore, but in spite of that, the discussion around him was just as heated as it was last year. Adam was still the core topic of the argument but now the battle lines had been redrawn thanks to his death in the climax of Volume 6. Now it’s become commonplace for RWBY’s discussion communities to deride many of the dime-a-dozen posts about Adam and his “wasted potential” that have been arriving nearly daily like reinforcements to batten at a wall. But why? What changed in just one year that changed the entire argument around Adam? Why are his fans and critics embroiled in a new war to enter the hiatus?



That’s what I’m trying to set out and accomplish in this essay. I am going to hopefully explain the primary reasons for why Adam is a controversial character following Volume 6, in particular why his fans are dissatisfied with the way his characterization was taken over the course of the show. Keep in m ind that parts of this essay touch on Adam’s abuse so if that’s a thing you’d rather not see, avoid going further.

1) Headcanons were proven wrong

No one likes being wrong. Just look at students who get fail grades in exams, they’re usually despondent. It’s never something you lose as you grow up, in fact, Being wrong just sucks, to put it bluntly.

Remember how I mentioned at the beginning that because of the content droughts fandoms experience, headcanons and theories can grow far further than anyone intended? Adam is an example of that happening for three years.

Adam’s first appearance was in the Black Trailer, released on March 22nd, 2013. He wouldn’t make a significant appearance in the show until Heroes and Monsters, the penultimate episode to Volume 3, released on February 6th of 2016. His only significant appearances between those two dates was a cameo in the Volume 2 finale and V3C7, Beginning of the End, released on January 2nd.

Adam’s initial appearance left much of his personality vague, barring that he was Blake’s superior, a stoic swordmaster and that he was fighting to liberate the Faunus from humanity with the full intent of taking a pound of flesh from humanity for what they’d done to the Faunus- to quote From Shadows:

From Shadows, we’ll descend upon the world, take back what you stole, from shadows, we’ll reclaim our destiny, set our future free.

As such, the mental image of Adam that the fandom was given had nearly three years in real life to set in stone, that he was Blake’s former mentor who had fallen into extremism and terror attacks. Some even suspected going off Oobleck and Blake’s interactions in Volume 2 that Adam would receive a redemption from his wicked ways to show as an example of how Blake would redeem the White Fang from its own muck-filled past, or that Adam would need to die in an alternate variant of that story to show how far down the dark path he’d gone. Tauradonna was even a fairly high-profile ship in the early days of the show, being on roughly the same level as Blake/Weiss.

The headcanons were only given further room to grow thanks to adaptations of the Black trailer and early RWBY not taking the time to more properly setup Adam’s true character, in particular the Shirow Miwa adaptation. Miwa’s version of the scene, or at least the localized version, was released across two chapters in April and May of 2016, with the full book getting a physical print in the West in August 2017. Adam in the Miwa adaptation is far more talkative than his canon counterpart and even makes several dry quips throughout the fight:

When they first see the AK-130 guards (”Looks like we’re doing this the hard way” in the trailer): “Looks like all the seats are taken Blake.” When asked who they are (Adam doesn’t have a line here): “We’re thieves.” Upon seeing the Spider Droid for the first time: “Tch! He’s one serious baggage clerk.”

Adam’s dialogue is also softened from his original dialogue to boot:

“Buy me some time!” “But-” “Do it!” instead now is “Blake, buy me some time.“ “But that’s-” “I just need a second.” Blake also gets to make a quip that “You know… You’re fairly high-maintenance.” When Blake’s barrage ends, she says “I did all I could,” and Adam thanks her with “It was more than enough, get back.” All Adam says in the animated version of the scene is “Move!” The manga makes a significant addition to the aftermath of the battle, where Blake chides Adam for the ambush being sloppy. Adam initially just smiles as “that’s what you’re here for,” before Blake quickly rebukes him, cutting the train car as she says that the White Fang “not lower itself to bloodshed.” The last we see of Adam in the manga is him standing on the train carriage, pondering to himself “You think this is wrong Blake?” A similar change is And “Perfect. Move up to the next car, I’ll set the charges,” is now “There’s at least 5,000 cases. All right, let’s kill the engine.” “What about the crew?” Adam is silent and when Blake presses him for information, the Spider Droid attacks Prior to the train attack there is a scene added by the Manga where Blake says that the Dust will be redistributed to Faunus in need. She asks Adam to confirm this and he looks back over his shoulder, lips parsed, and says “Of course.” However the next page has a black box of him saying “Don’t overthink it Blake.”

The point of this extended summary of the Black Trailer in Miwa’s adaptation is to show that even in adaptations of the trailer, RWBY didn’t do much to dissuade people from forming the headcanon that Adam was simply a fallen revolutionary. In fact the manga smooths out Adam’s rougher edges, making his dialogue less harsh and more sarcastic. Remember as well that these were initially released soon after Volume 3 wrapped and before the commentary confirmation of abuse, meaning that these gave Adam fans one last bit of material to bolster their ideas of what Adam was.

Obviously, all of these ideas and theories went out the window with Volume 3 Chapter 11 and the subsequent reveal by Miles and Kerry in Volume 3′s commentary track that Adam was in fact an abuser. A lot of his fans didn’t take to this reveal well, which I’ll return to in a future section of this essay, since in part it shot down all of their theories about Adam and made him an irredeemable monster. Adam’s potential redemption was destroyed the moment he slapped Blake.

It is telling that most of Adam’s more passionate fans are from the early generations of the RWBY fandom who were around since the early trailers, since there’s a sharp divide between those fans and the more common Adam fan reaction of “I like him in spite of the abuse or explicitly only work with AU stories where he isn’t as bad.” Again, no one really likes being wrong, especially when it means accepting you were wrong for nearly three years.

2) The abuser twist

Something that I’ve never liked about Adam’s turn as an abuser was how looking back at Volumes 1 and 2 for evidence of the twist in advance, it’s difficult to find anything concrete. I had this discussion on a server lately where looking at all of Volumes 1 and 2 along with 3′s first half, there was really only one agreed upon sign of abuse prior to V3 in Volume 2- Blake’s flinch when Yang goes to hug her in Burning the Candle. But the problem with that is that even this can be taken into a different context, as one of my friends pointed out. As she reminded the chat, Yang had already shoved Blake several times by that point in the conversation and Blake may have flinched instinctively when she saw Yang’s arms raise again.

Of course given the context of Adam’s abuse, Blake flinching may in fact have been foreshadowing, or it may have just been her instinctively preparing for another shove. We just don’t know, and that vagueness around Blake’s past and the abuse twist is partly why a lot of fans argue that the abuse twist was never planned in the early stages of the show and was an idea introduced during production. This is not a concept new to RWBY- Monty came up with the Maidens one day while working on Volume 3 after all- but it does mean that for sudden character turns like Adam’s abuse, the question will be raised of “was this always planned or was it just something you added as the story flowed along?”

Much of the cited evidence that Adam was planned to be an abuser from the early show is in a similarly murky place. Blake speaks of Adam in Volume 2 as a mentor (”I had a partner… more of a mentor actually”), Monty himself called Blake the “apprentice” in an interview after the Black trailer, and much of her subdued behavior compared to her more affectionate self seen in Volumes 5 and 6 can be simply explained as Blake keeping a low profile to avoid Faunus discrimination and the attention of the White Fang.

Even in Volume 3 Chapter 7- Adam’s last scene before Chapter 11 and the confirmation of his abuse- things are kept vague. Adam even sharply rebukes his Lieutenant when he offers to hunt Blake down following the Black Trailer, saying “Forget it.” Adam’s plan is to go to Mistral without a care for Blake, which goes against his obsessive behavior seen later in this very season.

Much of the evidence given for Adam’s abuse- him gaslighting Blake in the Adam short, Blake talking about him in Volumes 5 and 6 to Sun and Yang, his dialogue during the Volume 6 battle- is all retroactive evidence, which does not solve the initial problem of the initial seasons poorly setting up Adam’s turn. Much of the evidence for and against the twist is shady at best, and reaching at worst due to how vague the wording is around Adam. Blake only ever speaks of him as a partner or mentor, never belying a romantic connection outside of the volume 2 premiere with the drawing of him in her notebook. Certainly with the benefit of hindsight some may find evidence in Volumes 1 through 3, primarily that Blake is simply an unreliable narrator, but I still feel like the lack of clean foreshadowing to such a large part of Adam’s character it weakens the twist, and some of Adam’s fans remain bitter that his character underwent a drastic 180 out of relatively nowhere.

3) Simple preference

Being blunt, a lot of Adam’s fans just prefer the Adam shown in the early seasons to the one the show closed out on. This idea is often mocked by some that his fans just wanted to see a Vergil knockoff, but for some of Adam’s fans it just came down to wanting to see cool fights. After all, RWBY was built on the initial idea of well-designed characters having well-choreographed fights. The show advertised itself initially as “From the maker of Dead Fantasy and Haloid,” which to surmise, weren’t shows that lured people in for their narrative quality. Monty’s loyalist fans who followed from his freelance work and from Red Vs Blue followed for cool fights, and Adam’s fighting style and design made him an instant fan favorite. It has only been from Volume 3 onwards that the show has advertised itself more as a drama than an animation showcase, and as such some of Adam’s fans don’t care less for his character turn other than that it makes him whiny and edgy and they’d like to see him swing his sword a bit more.

While the idea of preferring Adam as a revolutionary over his Yandere self seen from V3 is also a mocked concept as it tends to be used by people less well-versed in expressing critique of Adam’s character and makes for a popular strawman tactic, a morally gray villain may have worked well for RWBY. Especially as Adam and Cinder both show in different ways that the series should stay away from villains with no redeeming qualities.

Though I suppose at least unlike Cinder, Adam actually has a backstory, so I should count my blessings.

To surmise, for some of Adam’s fans it was a purely physical love affair

4) Adam’s death and its connection to Bumblebee

Blake and Yang’s final confrontation with Adam in Volume 6 marks a significant step in their relationship, which means if you like Bumblebee then the emotional climax of the volume hits home for you. If you shipped literally anything else then at least the choreography was good, but if you didn’t ship Bumblebee and never liked the Adam abuser turn… hoo boy.

Being blunt, a fair few Bumblebee shippers don’t mind the abuser twist since in the long run, it helped their ship and gave Blake and Yang plenty of angst to work through both alone and as a pair. I’ve said before that Blake’s recovery arc made for some good content in Volumes 4 and 5 barring the Sun slaps, and Yang’s PTSD arc, while bare-bones in Volume 4, was some of the more consistently good material that year when shown. And as such, Adam being made a one-note psycho who wanted to kill Blake suited them well, as it gave a clear villain for Blake and Yang to overcome while developing past their respective traumas. The problem of course being, Adam’s fans not appreciating this turn and definitely not appreciating the names they were called when they expressed this dissatisfaction.

This led to a litany of hot takes- “Adam’s fans only cared for the show and the character as an outlet for a male power fantasy,” “Adam’s fans were entirely made of sexists who just hated women,” “Adam stans are abuse apologists.” (Like 40% of the Adam fans I know are actual abuse victims so fuck yourself on the front of trying to use their trauma as a low blow) And to be fair, Adam’s fans responded with their own disappointing share of bad takes involving the dreaded words “wasted potential,” alongside murder and nerfing, but I go over those later.

(also you know genuine homophobics but trying to avoid braindead reasoning here for my own sake)

Getting back on topic, I quite obviously detest this lumping in of all criticisms. For one it means that simply shipping something that isn’t Bumblebee and disliking the fight can get one labelled with accusations of homophobia. A disgusting tactic on its own, to say nothing of how some people use it just to deflect criticism. Liked Adam? Then you’re an abuse apologist now. It’s interesting to compare the response to Adam last year and this year, where suddenly the fandom went from dismissing Adam after Haven to suddenly being very insistent that his death was well done and that only bigots opposed it; a naturally insulting statement to any members of the LGBT community or racial minorities who took umbrage with the handling of the Faunus.

And speaking of, my largest gripe with Adam’s turn personally is how it overshadows his previous commitment to the Faunus. Even though Adam’s short shows him fighting for the Faunus, to the point where Lionized and From Shadows are both expressly about how the Faunus are subject to inhumane treatments, it all gets tossed aside for the sake of Adam’s obsession with Blake and I’ve always found the almost-retcon of “Adam only truly cared for his own equality” a bit.. hard to get a read on? Since the original reason for his fall was because of his rabid devotion to his cause/getting vengeance on humans. Adam in-setting had been prepped as a Malcolm X style analogue before most of these traits were pushed over to Sienna. I feel like there is a lot that could be said about how RWBY handles its racism narrative, especially when it pertains to Adam given his own placement in the narrative, but that such a thinkpiece would likely be hit with accusations of homophobia or abuse apologism likely curtails that idea in anyone’s head. Some voices in the fandom have even come forward and expressed their dissatisfaction at how the arc depicting racism got curtailed for a romance. Adam rather sadly could have been part of a cornerstone on a narrative about the natural consequences of violent extremism, but instead the writers went with a far shallower option in my opinion.

Also being blunt the whole “Adam was just a secondary character for Blake and Yang’s arcs” feels a bit like revisionism of weak writing.

5) Damaged goods

Adam lost a lot of fans thanks to Volume 5. You can argue about this all you want but the facts don’t change that the volume was overall one that shot his character in the leg. Alongside having him go completely bananas out of nowhere with the “THE BELLADONNA NAME HAS BROUGHT ME NOTHING BUT GRIEF” scene, Adam’s humiliating head smack from Blake that knocked him out for an entire episode and his Naruto run escape from the Battle. Put bluntly, people didn’t give a shit, especially after CRWBY’s own attitude was to mock Adam, further undermining any threat factor Adam was meant to have.

It’s quite obvious in hindsight that Adam’s short was made quickly, and was almost certainly damage control made to counter the backlash from the Battle of Haven episodes. Sienna’s inclusion has eve been admitted by Miles on RWBY Rewind to be done as pure fanservice for the fans who wanted more from her design, and it shows with how Sienna dominates the back half of the short. But the short’s nature as damage control, while ultimately well received, still marked it as a fix job for Haven. Even last year fans wondered what was the point of trying to hype Adam back up as a threatening villain given he would almost certainly lose any future battles he fought in.

Ultimately, a lot of people just didn’t care about Adam. The damage had been done by Haven, and even a lot of his own fans wrote off him being allowed to be even half as competent as his Volume 3 self again. With even his own fans having written off his chances of being a fearsome combatant again and the crew openly reviling Adam, not to mention his own voice actor despising him, a mood of “why should we care if the crew don’t?” began to settle in for Adam’s fans. Some even looked forward to his death since it would mean at least in death, Adam was free of being written as a psycho Yandere. For some of Adam’s fans, his writing had been so schizophrenic that death seemed like the only way forward instead of dragging it out.

6) “Wasted potential”

This is a point I don’t entirely agree with myself, but as this is an essay about why Adam has been controversial after Volume 6 I only feel it fair to include it, even if solely for the purposes of rebuttal. Wasted potential has become a set of dirty words to portions of the fandom thanks to the many, many, many arguments about Adam post-season.

A rather large complaint is that Adam “jobbed” for Blake and Yang, despite neither of them really having gained much experience onscreen since Beacon. I disagree with this notion since it does take some details out of consideration for this angle- B&Y were both tired from earlier fighting in the day, Blake was shocked to see Adam out of nowhere and that’s why he overwhelmed her, Adam still actually defeats Blake at Argus and it largely comes down to Yang to win the fight, and V5 had actually set up her changing her fighting style to better combat Adam’s own style.

One idea of potential for Adam that I will admit to liking is the idea of Adam as an ideological villain to Blake. Adam and Blake could have both represented the differing sides of the Faunus debate and how to achieve results, perhaps even going for a scenario where neither side was truly correct or wrong. Such a plot would have even had the benefit of tying the Faunus narrative into the wider stakes of the show while also humanizing it on a base level through their struggle. But at this point, this is becoming me wishing the show was something else. I’m sure a great fanfic could bloom from this idea in the future and I hope I get to see it one day.

There’s also the entire idea that Blake and Yang “murdered” (it was self-defense) Adam since apparently this is a big deal. I dunno fam, you just ignoring all those White Fang goons RWBY killed in V2 by leaving them in the tunnels? The ones they smacked around during V3? All those people Yang probably killed in the Yellow trailer? Now seems like a bit of an odd time to draw a line in the sand about the RWBY girls killing someone.

7) Conclusion

To conclude, there’s a lot of controversy surrounding Adam, and a lot that will surround his character for years. I feel like arguments around him will still be going by the end of the hiatus, if not for years to come. Adam has attracted a fandom from varying walks of life, but one thing I’ve noticed with some regularity is how many of of them themselves have histories with abuse. What unites a lot of them in their reasons for liking the character is the tragedy of how Adam is a person who has been persecuted then gained the power to bite back, but in his blind rage winds up lashing out at someone he is supposed to love. With permission, they let me share their accounts so I could put them here:

Be it purely visual/choreography appreciation, falling for fan theories and headcanons, his allusions to the Beast, the mystery of his mask and later branding, his potential as an ideological rival for Blake or for personal reasons, Adam gained a fan following from all walks of life over the past six years, who may not have learned everything they wanted to about him but who wanted to learn more regardless. Even if they only liked him just to watch him fight, Adam has a small if passionate fanbase, and I hope I’ve explained some of their grievances with the show as a whole now, particularly following Volume 6. Adam might have been a scumbag, but ironically his fandom has actually been quite pleasant to talk to, so I hope I’ve presented their more accurate or personal issues in a fair light.

Thank you for reading. Please consider sharing the post around if you enjoyed it or think someone you know would.