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A Breakdown of Episode 13

Hello again all for yet another week of a RWBY episode breakdown. So far I’ve been able to find the times to enjoy RWBY while also enjoying all that Octoberween has to offer. Though I usual post these blogs early in the morning, my other blog obligations have been building for the final days of my Octoberween climax. Hopefully we’ll see RWBY follow the same trend as we count down the final episodes. So with that said let’s get into the most recent youtube embed video of RWBY Episode 13: Forever Fall

We start off the episode with Pyrrah gazing out the dorm room of Team JuNiPeR. Jaune is noticeably absent, something that Nora makes a note of only for Lie to mention how he’s been spending a lot of time lately with Cardin and his Team. Nora finds that rather odd given how their class is to have a field trip tomorrow. Pyrrah mentions that she’s sure that Jaune knows what he’s doing though both Lie and Nora note a hint of apprehension in her voice. At that moment we find Jaune standing outside Team JuNiPR’s dorm room as he’s listening in to his team’s conversation. He steps away only to be found by Ruby who happens to notice Jaune in the hallway and asks him if he locked himself out again. Jaune assures her that he hasn’t which prompts Ruby to ask Jaune where he’s been all this time. He tries his best to answer like he usually does but finally fess up in a sense and tells Ruby that he’s screwed up. Though he doesn’t go into details he tells Ruby his trouble with Cardin and Pyrrah and how he feels he’s screwed up as a leader. Ruby and Jaune then have a leader-to-leader chat on how despite what he used to be like before, he cannot see himself as a failure now for if he does he’ll take his team down with him. She ends their talk for the night by telling him that his team deserves a good leader and she thinks he can be that kind of later. After their chat Jaune tries to enter his dorm only for him to get a call from Cardin with more chores for him to do.

In the next scene we see Goodwitch escorting Teams RWBY, JuNiPeR and CarDYnL thru a red-leafed forest that Goodwitch informs the students is called Forever Fall. She tells the students that despite its beauty it is full of hidden dangers. She continues to inform the students that their mission is to collect red sap from the local trees for a school assignment and that she’s there to ensure they get out of the forest alive. As each of the teams break up to find trees to harvest the sap, we see that Jaune has become the pack-mule for Cardin and his team. Though Pyrrah waits to see if he’ll join the rest of his team, Jaune sadly resigns himself to being Cardin’s “pal” during this trip. Pyrrah sighs in disappointment.

The next scene we see Cardin and the rest of his team resting up as Jaune collects all their sap, his sap and one jar extra. Jaune says he thinks he may be allergic to the stuff but Cardin ignores him. Cardin then toys with Jaune by asking him if he was wondering why he collected one jar extra of sap to which Jaune does admit he was wondering. Cardin then helps Jaune up as he and the rest of his team show him what their plan is. As Jaune and Team CaRDinaL sneak up to an overlook in the forest, Jaune then sees the rest of Teams RWBY and JuNiPeR collecting their samples of sap with little issue. Jaune is confused at first until Cardin points out his target who happens to be Pyrrah. It seems that Cardin has held a grudge against Pyrrah from last episode and plans on getting payback by having Jaune throw a jar of sap at her, then unleashing some sting bugs (that Jaune happened to gather for him the night before) given how they love sweets. Cardin order Jaune to throw the jar at Pyrrah or else he’ll tell Goodwitch about his lies and have him on the first airship out of Beacon. Though Jaune tries to throw the jar he can’t bring himself to do it and instead throws the jar at Cardin in defiance, covering him with tree sap. Cardin gets angry and tells Jaune that “now he’s done it.” The final scene shows Jaune getting grabbed from behind as the camera zooms in on his worried face, implying a beating is to happen. Roll end credits with Team CaRDinaL backdrop.

High Points:

 

 

Jaune finally grows a pair.

We all knew this was going to happen eventually. I’m just glad the series didn’t drag this inner-Jaune conflict out any longer than necessary. Though the episode does imply that some time has passed since the events of the last episode, it’s still good that we don’t get to see Jaune continuing to be Cardin’s personal “bitch” longer than need be. It was horribly painful to see him go thru all that he did. Hopefully this’ll pay off later on in the series when he might be needed to call on this inner strength later on.

 

Ruby and Jaune’s chat

This was a nice surprise to see when it came to Jaune coping with his situation. He didn’t try to push her away, didn’t try to brush off his situation or display any of the negative character traits that he did with Pyrrah back in the last episode. Ruby once again is able to call upon her inner-knowledge like she did before when she first talked to Blake back in episode 3. Ruby even added some cuteness to her chat with Jaune by answering his simple questions with a simple “nope”. Though she didn’t try to sugar coat her statements she did help snap him back into perspective on what it means to be a leader. And given what she’s gone thru being team leader of Team RWBY also helped solidify her statements all the more, including her views on how she too can see Jaune as a great leader. We viewers know that after seeing his exploits back in episode 8 so it’s good to see we’re not the only ones catching things.

 

More site locations

It looks like that perhaps we are finally starting to see more areas of the world of RWBY that we’ve seen before in the “Color” trailers. Perhaps Forever Fall was the same forest that Blake and Adam ran thru to meet the train in the “Red” Trailer. It’s also interesting to see that despite the forest being in a perpetual state of “fall”, it also has a dual purpose of creating special sweet sap for unknown purposes. Besides Nora being able to gulp down a whole jar full in one sitting that is.

Low Points:

 

Pyrrah’s reactions

Though not exactly a low point her say but seeing her react to Jaune’s plight and being unable to help him was almost as painful for me to watch as it was seeing Jaune being Cardin’s back-mule.  I was at least hoping she’d try to say something, or butt in between Cardin and Jaune just once during this plight if only to give him some respite. I know Jaune pushed her away last episode but I was hoping she wasn’t the type to give up on Jaune just yet given how she was literally willing to help him in any way.  Perhaps it was enough to see Pyrrah’s reaction but I guess I was hoping for a little more.

Team CaRDinaL in on the secret

This is just only a guess but we have to assume that the rest of Cardin’s team has knowledge asto why Cardin has Jaune wrapped around his finger. This’ll make things harder to explain in the plot if and when Jaune’s trickery comes out. How exactly will Cardin be able to keep the rest of his team quiet about his little sweetheart deal he has on Jaune? Or even worse what’s stopping the rest of the team to use him as a back-mule personally? And if Cardin is able to force the rest of his team to stay quiet what does that say about Team CaRDinaL? Do they follow a bully’s lead? Or are they just spineless?

 

Lame Revenge plot

You’d think people would outgrow such reasons to want to get back at someone. You’d think that if Beacon is supposed to be the best of the best of the best with honors they’d have a means to weed out potential candidates that don’t hold such a mean streak toward others. It’s bad enough that Beacon may admit students that are prejudice toward faunus but they’d be the type to be so selfish to perform a mean prank like what Cardin wanted to do toward Pyrrah? I know it’s meant to show how petty Cardin can be but there had to be a better way to help convey this. Why not do it when it something seriously dangerous than just bug stings? Hijacking her live fire exercise maybe or try to trip her up in a more serious manner that could endanger her entire team? Any one of those could’ve been a better pull than just unleashing the swarm. Even if Pyrrah was the target any number of scenarios would’ve been better if the stakes were properly raised on the action.

In the end this episode was a little better than compared to the last two episodes. But I can’t help but feel that we are just “going by the numbers” to have Jaune mature into a better person over this in this episode. It’s great to see some tension between team members if only to see some wiser moments shine. It’s just too bad we have to see petty actions by some individuals just to get those wise moments. It’s a step up from last episode but not by much. Hopefully episode 14 will raise the bar a little given that we are slowly closing in on the final episodes to the season. If you haven’t seen it yet you can check it on Rooster Teeth’s website or on Crunchyroll. So until next time enjoy and let’s hope we get to see some plot resolution over the blackmail and move on.

Any thoughts about this episode? Agree? Disagree? Undecided? Let me know in the comments!

Ta-ta

“N”