I Rewrote RWBY Volume 8 is a Fixfic video series by Unicorn of War
. As the title suggests, the video is a rewrite of Volume 8 where the creator fixes the problems that he had with the volume and gives thoughts on how he thinks it could have been better.
I Rewrote RWBY Volume 8 part 1 can be seen right here and part 2 can be is in this link
I Rewrote RWBY Volume 8 provides examples of:
- Adaptational Friendship: Unlike their canon counterparts, whom were never anything more than villainous colleagues with often Teeth-Clenched Teamwork; Emerald and Neo in this rewrite end up forming an odd friendship when they're together during Salem's siege of Atlas, and they remain close when they defect to the heroes at the midway point. Neo in this version is disgusted by Cinder's vicious emotional manipulation and mistreatment of Emerald and becomes protective of her.
- Adaptational Goal Change: The canon Volume 8 tried to rationalize Hazel's allegiance to Salem and him turning his revenge on Ozpin instead of her as being the result of Salem breaking Hazel's will by showing him the futility of trying to kill her, before convincing Hazel that she'll create a new world order without huntsmen and huntresses (the very profession which Hazel's sister died serving in). This rewrite does away with the canon explanation – instead, Hazel serves Salem and puts up with all her crimes despite his reservations because she (falsely) promised him that she'd use the Relic of Creation to resurrect his sister, and Hazel's shocked and horrified reaction during Salem's attack on Mantle makes it clear that he didn't fully comprehend the scope of Salem's evil until he saw with his own eyes (and partook in) a full-blown genocide being conducted on her orders.
- Adaptational Heroism: Ironwood, whose sanity slippage is nowhere near as severe in this version, doesn’t commit as many crimes as in canon and eventually redeems himself, becoming Team RWBY’s ally once more. Jacques, instead of being self-absorbed and unrepentant to the end as in canon, in this version is helpful to the heroes after his fall from grace and the escalating situation in Atlas forces them together, and he tries to make amends with his children. Neo also joins the heroes, revealing that she was pretending Ruby was her target so she could get a chance at killing Cinder when her guard was down, unlike her canon counterpart. Emerald also redeems herself sooner than in canon.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Ironwood, having nowhere near as much sanity slippage as his canon portrayal, manages to manipulate Ruby and her friends into a trap by claiming Weiss’s mother and brother are in prison due to being suspected of being involved with Jacques, and he tries to convince Penny and Pierrot into returning by claiming he needs their help to fix the heating grid in Mantle.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- Many of Ironwood's crueler actions from the canon Volume 8 are toned down or adapted out altogether. He shows remorse for shooting Oscar, and he earnestly keeps trying to evacuate as many people in Mantle as he believes he can before he tries to elevate Atlas into the upper atmosphere.
- Hazel in this version is completely horrified by seeing Salem endanger countless lives in Mantle, having e. He also doesn't brutalize and torture Oscar, instead being completely courteous to the boy during his imprisonment.
- Whereas Jacques' canon self was self-absorbed and unredeemed to the end, Jacques in this version is shaken and somewhat humbled by his far fall from grace, and he earnestly tries to make some amends with his children.
- Adaptational Sympathy: General Ironwood (who lacks his canon self's sanity slippage) and the Ace-Ops' viewpoint and arguments during the Atlas arc are regarded with more sympathy by the rewrite than in canon, and it's made clear that Team RWBY and their supporters don't have that much high-ground over them compared to how the canon show firmly viewed things through a pro-Team RWBY lens, treating the RWBY-Ironwood conflict as Grey-and-Gray Morality.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: One of the character sub-plots deals with Blake being confronted with how her current relationship with Yang is increasingly codependent, and the two learning to work apart and form a healthier relationship dynamic. Blake and Yang's relationship as it's been presented in the canon show, up to Volume 9, has been widely criticized out-of-universe by detractors for unintentionally coming across as a codependent and toxic relationship.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Jacques despite being an abusive father towards his children, using his wife to get take over the company, and being responsible for Watts hacking into Atlas. Weiss feels no pleasure from his death from the Hound.
- The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: Jacques and Willow Schnee. Deconstructed in the former's case, as Weiss is vocally appalled that it took nothing less than the literal end of the world for Jacques to put in the effort to try and fix things.
- Ascended Extra: Several characters have expanded roles compared to their canon selves during the Volume 8 arc, particularly Ciel and Jacques Schnee.
- Break the Haughty:
- Jacques, once the Corrupt Corporate Executive in charge of the most powerful Dust company on Remnant, doesn't even wield a shadow of the power he once did after his arrest and amid Salem's siege of Atlas, and he recognizes it. It drives him to sincere efforts to try and make amends with his family that he abused, to limited success.
- Both Team RWBY and Ironwood. After their break-up in Volume 7 due to both sides' deceit towards each-other and clashing opinions on how to save Atlas and Mantle, and after watching the situation continue to deteriorate while all their efforts from either side have backfired or hit a dead end, both groups are eventually forced to swallow their pride and admit they didn't know what they were doing as much as they thought they did.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Weiss, with Whitley as a wingman, calls Jacques out for how he treated their mother and abusively groomed them for years, for setting the Arma Gigas on Weiss and in doing so indirectly got her permanently scarred, for only having himself to blame for driving Winter away from himself and towards Ironwood, and for having ruined countless people's lives with his corrupt and ruthless business practices with their family's megacorporation. Weiss then proceeds to call out Willow for marrying Jacques in the first place, and for grossly wallowing in alcohol and self-pity instead of lifting a finger to protect her children from Jacques' abusive parenting for years.
- Death by Adaptation: Raven was completely absent from Volume 8, but shows up in this version to pull a Heroic Sacrifice.
- Disappointed in You: Ozpin shows this towards James for attempting to kill Oscar who was pleading to him and showed no attempt to fight him. However, when Salem fights everyone and tries to kill James, Ozpin comes to his rescue showing that perhaps their friendship can be salvaged.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- When Salem orders Hazel, Tyrian and Mercury to unleash the Hellbrine in the Grimm ichor pool near Mantle in order to destroy the city, pretty much all of Salem's minions in attendance sans Tyrian are unnerved. Hazel in particular is genuinely horrified by this throughout the rewrite, and it's clear that in this version, Hazel didn't fully grasp just how far Salem's evil went until he saw her committing total genocide against an entire kingdom, while Mercury is slightly unnerved.
- Neo reveals that while she dislikes Ruby she wants Salem gone more. She is also disgusted by Cinder leaving Emerald off the edge of a cliff despite everything she’s done for her.
- Explosive Breeders: Salem has developed a new type of Grimm called Hellbrine, which, upon being released from their egg, multiply massively and overwhelm their entire environment with a literal flood of Grimm-spawning ichor.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: The conflict between RWBY/JNR and the Ace-Ops over how to save Atlas. Unlike the show's version, which desperately wanted to make RWBY/JNR out to be in the right and General James Ironwood's supporters in the wrong; in this version, neither side is presented as being much better or worse than the other side. Both sides have lied, deceived, refused to trust or put faith in their ostensible allies, and acted stubbornly and arrogantly; both sides are honestly still trying to save as many people in both Atlas and Mantle as possible through differing methods, and both sides are presented as being at fault for how far south the situation is going.
- Heel–Face Turn: Raven Branwen. After the events of Volume 5, she's rejoined forces with Taiyang, and they come to Atlas' rescue.
- Heel Realization: Downplayed by Jacques. To his credit, he at least realizes that he's hit rock bottom, and he tries with limited success to make amends with the family he abused.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Raven sacrifices herself in the final battle against Mega Salem to save Ruby, seeing it as redemption for what she should've done for Summer.
- Hypocrisy Callout: When Ruby calls out Ironwood for being so secretive to his own allies about his plans for Amity and Atlas during the events of Volume 7, Ironwood retorts that Ruby and her friends themselves acted no better towards him by being constantly cagey and keeping their own important secrets from him, and that Ruby's group ultimately acted no better than Ozpin after they'd much earlier lashed out at him for that same conduct towards them in Volume 6.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Raven explains that she never wanted to be a mother in the first place, which is why she left Summer to be Yang's mother.
- Jerkass Gods: Ozpin is not shy about his belief that the God of Light is trash because his arrogance as a divine being blinds him to the fact that mortals have their own individual autonomy and didn't take into account the cruelty of Ozpin's reincarnation process which robs others of that autonomy. This is because Light can't think of mortals as anything other than possessions and a reflection of his own goodness, rather than their own individual.
- Parental Abandonment:
- Emerald Sustrai recalls that her parents gave her up to a squalid orphanage when she was born.
- Hazel Rainart tells Oscar that his and Gretchen's parents were a huntsman and huntress who died in the line of duty, and that their deaths laid the foundations for Hazel's disillusionment with the huntsman academies while Gretchen conversely wanted to follow in their parents' footsteps.
- Passing the Torch: Before passing on, Raven hands down her title and powers of the Spring Maiden to Yang.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Salem refrains from torturing Oscar in favour of attempting to win him over to her side while sowing dissent between him and Ozpin. She also stops Cinder from conscripting Neo into their ranks without Neo's own consent, as she doesn't want a potential rogue element entering her inner-circle and sowing internal disasters.
- Precision F-Strike: After being entrusted with the powers of the Spring Maiden, Yang blasts Mega Salem away, stating "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY SISTER, YOU BITCH!"
- Regretful Traitor: Both Ironwood and Ren have this.
- Related in the Adaptation: Ciel, and the female scientist in Pietro and Watts' P.E.N.N.Y. Project photo, are revealed to be Pietro's natural-born daughter and his wife respectively, which also makes Ciel Penny's sister. The person inside the Hound is revealed in this version to be related to Hazel.
- Required Secondary Powers:
- It's revealed that a side-effect of Emerald's hallucination-creating Semblance is that she can sense the thoughts and feelings of others who she focuses on. The fact that she can sense any emotions coming from the Hound foreshadows that there's a human component inside it, since she normally can't feel any emotions coming from the Grimm due to their soulless nature.
- Similarly, it's revealed that Raven knows when the people her Semblance is bonded to are in danger and need her to step in because her Semblance enables her to see and feel what they are.
- So Proud of You: Raven's final words to Yang are this.
- Spared by Adaptation: Clover, Vine, Penny, and Ironwood are all still alive by the end of the fic, whereas their canon selves were all dead by the end of Volume 8.
- The Stinger: The Volume officially ends with Cinder emerging from the Grimm River in a new form and more Grimm related powers. An extended ending describes her attack occurring in the rewrite's "Volume 9, Episode 1".
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- A caption notes that when Team RWBY and their allies are squabbling over whether or not to rescue their loved ones in Ironwood's custody, Ruby makes a snip about how Blake and Yang went behind hers and Weiss's backs to tell Robyn about Amity, and in doing so are partly responsible for Ironwood losing trust in them and turning against them in the first place.
- Blake gets called out by her friends for her increasing codependence towards Yang, constantly following Yang's lead instead of thinking for herself even in the heat of a life-or-death situation. Blake internalizes this, acknowledging that this behavior is a habit she retained from her first abusive relationship with Adam, and she prioritizes overcoming it throughout the rest of the rewrite.
- Whitley calls out Winter on how both she and Weiss left him behind in their family's abusive household to fend for himself: while they got to forge their own paths out in the world for themselves, he was left with no emotional support, no way out and no options except to embrace their father's grooming and expectations of him. He furthermore calls out how, even after Jacques' arrest, neither of his sisters bothered to come back and try mending bridges.
- Ruby and Ironwood both call each-other out when they see each-other again. Ruby calls Ironwood out for keeping everyone in the dark about his plans for Amity while taking Mantle's much-needed resources, and for going after the Happy Huntresses whom were the only people actively standing up for Mantle. Ironwood in turn calls out Ruby for her and her friends actively keeping him in the dark and deceiving him, which is what destroyed Ironwood's ability to trust or have faith in anyone else and led them to their current situation, and that it proves Ruby and her friends weren't as morally superior to Ozpin as they thought they were in Volume 6.
- After Clover recovers from his injuries inflicted by Tyrian, he gives the other Ace-Ops a dressing-down for wasting precious time and energy continuing to fight Team JNR, whom want to save the people in Atlas and Mantle just as much as they do, while their shared true enemy Salem is imminently about to launch a full-scale assault on the kingdom.
- You Remind Me of X: Blake admits to Yang that she personally relates to Ozpin as she sees her past with Adam in his past with Salem — Blake and Ozpin both helped the person they were in love with to build an empire on bloodshed and war, only to become disillusioned, try to do the right thing, and find out the hard way what a monster the person they'd been in love with truly was. Blake also follows up by asking Yang if part of the reason the latter was so unsympathetic and infuriated with Ozpin when his past was revealed in Volume 6 was because Ozpin running from Salem and the truth reminded Yang of Blake abandoning her.