Another Unpopular opinion!!! Or just my thoughts on the founders of Konoha

{not my way to title them but it is said}

I actually know Madara is an asshole and did not have to be a dick to everyone. I also know that Tobirama is also one that didn't have to be one! Hashirama too and he, get this, did not have to be one!

Separation between on what's good and bad don't need to be justified by grown adults. They did not have to pull that line and tell everyone else how they should live their lives outside from the fact that they are leaders or have a leadership complex, {idk if that's even a thing but it is now!}.

So when people critic their actions and every other leader in that universe, I just expect some little bit of self-awareness that some level of protection, needed them to be ignorant of everyone else's comfort.

Madara did not need to change anyone for his own version of peace, Tobirama did not need to feel included in everyone's lives just because they were around him, Hashirama did not need to let everyone feel included to earn his trust. But they were leaders of their own right, and I think Kishi did a great job for not toning their actions down, just who would get hurt because of it. Which, of course, meant one of them needed to be the bad guy, and Madara actually involved everyone just like he wanted… which ultimately led him to be defeated against said everyone.

Tobirama to Uchihas, Hashi with anyone with a grudge against his ambition, hope you get what I'm going for. They are all assholes.

And I know! I know every fan respectively in retrospective of the universe they live in benefiting if everyone went for what they wanted or what they were aiming to protect BUT! If you want to be critical about this, they were also people who were trying to prove what is good and what is bad. We ourselves live with each other based on our judgements on one another. There by, if they are allowed to judge, the people they wished to protect and call even with, also need to be given a chance to judge. It is in our nature to judge.

You can be critical about their actions, but my unpopular opinion, {or my thoughts at least}, ultimately is I know they were, and a bit too much given they had their chance to be in control over the people... which ultimately led them to be assholes.

[Did not speak about Izuna cause Izuna as a character didn't speak to the readers. The eyes that foretell on everything else is also possessed by one who has them. Outside them are none the wiser so according to the plot, it goes with the majority unfortunately]

A great example of “RWBY+ can do no wrong” is the whole “Let Penny make her own choices” thing. They keep doing it over and over, yet while watching I never got the idea RWBY+ doing it was bad. They’re never called out, they never regret it, or anything. Ruby takes the scroll from Penny’s hand and answers Ironwood for her, and makes her human without her consent. I get the not killing Penny thing, BUT THAT’S THE ONLY THING THEY DO FOR HER. WTF?!

Yes let's take a hot second to unpack all this.

Now, I'm going to be focusing on late Volume 7 and Volume 8, but in reality this problem started way back during Penny's introduction. Namely, presenting her as a literal tool of the military who has to break the rules set down (go out, have friends, etc.) in order to be her own person. There's a small problem here in the form of making Pietro the shadowy scientist and then changing him into the doting father with no acknowledgement that he a) built Penny with the purpose of being Atlas' tool and b) went along with dictating her actions through that whole run. However, given that Pietro is a minor character we may never even see again, we have a much larger problem in the form of Ruby being entirely disinterested in Penny's plight. Ruby cares about making sure Penny feels real, not that Penny has all the freedoms a real person innately deserves. Admittedly, this is less of an issue back in Volumes 1-3 because RWBY was a less serious show then, Penny was a new friend, and Ruby was the teenager student. But come Volume 7 when our show is questioning the characters' morals, Ruby is an adult now, Ruby has her huntsmen license, and she supposedly has this incredibly strong bond with Penny, it's now a problem that she hears things like "Ironwood doesn't want me to have friends" and just... doesn't seem to care. Or do anything. Or suggest that Penny do something. It's a non-topic. Ruby only becomes interested in Penny's autonomy when that autonomy threatens Ruby's own goals. When Ruby is working for Ironwood, it's totally fine if Penny works for Ironwood too, no matter how she might be being treated. (Though, frankly, I think the show did a terrible job of establishing Ironwood's supposed mistreatment. The no friends rule makes zero sense when Penny is being sent to celebratory parties organized by Ironwood. So that's a whole other issue.) But when Ruby is against Ironwood... well, then Penny needs to be on their side. Of course she'd be on their side. It's presented as inevitable, despite the fact that it very much should not be. But the point is that Ruby cares about keeping Penny away from Ironwood and giving her an illusion of choice only once she is breaking away. Otherwise, Penny's autonomy is not her concern.

So that's where we're starting out which is pretty bad. Already Ruby's status as the contrast to Ironwood is falling flat, but the show admittedly helps smooth things over by giving us such an extreme. Meaning, we learn fairly early on that Ironwood want to hack Penny and take that autonomy away, full stop. Ruby doesn't. Ergo, Ruby is the lesser of two evils here. I can see why so many fans dismiss the scroll scene given its seemingly, comparative insignificance, but it definitely rubbed me the wrong way. Part of that is because Penny never gets to express her own opinions to Ruby. She gets to do it with Winter and, notably, Penny comes to a sort of, 'We can manage both' stance. The dilemma of going after Cinder or saving Winter and fighting Salem or saving the people of Atlas/the Relics are meant to mirror one another and Penny manages to achieve both. She saves Winter and keeps the power out of Cinder's hands too. Then, she's given the one key that controls the latter dilemma: the Maiden powers. So what will Penny decide? How does she view the situation to leave or stay? How will her decision regarding Cinder and Winter impact her decision about Atlas and Mantle?

It doesn't. We have no idea what Penny thinks outside of a 'I'm sad when friends fight' line (which, again, puts a huge damper on the idea that Penny was always Ironwood/the Ace Ops' puppet and should be glad to be rid of them). Penny is brought into Ruby's group and her opinions disappear because Ruby makes all the decisions. Whatever Ruby says goes and THAT'S why the scroll scene is so horrible. Because we just watched Penny deciding for herself what to do about Winter. We just watched Penny deciding to take on the Maiden powers, making herself the most important person in the Kingdom right now. And then Ruby picks her up and all that goes away. Penny is given the chance to decide things again when Ironwood calls and Ruby takes the scroll away, speaking on her behalf. It does not matter whether Penny actually agrees with Ruby's decisions here, the act of not allowing her to make those decisions for herself speaks volumes.

From then on Penny just stops making choices. Ruby is the one who talks her into forgetting about Ironwood and the Ace Ops. Jaune is the one who decides to split the team and Ruby decided they need to get Amity up. Pietro literally takes control of Penny's body to hack into the system. Penny gets cut off from the group due to the Ace Ops and Nora is the one who decides to help. Prior to literally being hacked, she was more of a puppet in their hands than she was with Ironwood because it's in Ironwood's employ that we actually see Penny pushing back: She's going to be friends with Ruby no matter what, she's going to challenge Winter on her views, she's going to take the powers because that's what needs to be done, etc. But that lack of agency is completely overshadowed by Ironwood's hack Penny plan. Everything looks better compared to that, even if what we're left with is pretty awful on its own. Remember, this is the point in the story where Ironwood is fully evil, post-shooting Oscar and the Councilman. The group can do whatever they want at this point and come off looking "heroic," simply by means of not being Ironwood.

The next time Penny makes a decision is when she stands up to Pietro. Note that prior to this everyone talked her into doing something she says she does not want to do: leaving the group to stay on Amity. Pietro suggests it, Ruby justifies it, Weiss says it might be for the best and Blake ends the conversation by saying they need to leave. Penny goes, "I guess we all have to do some things we would rather not." They all make that decision for her. So she goes, fights Cinder, and then Amity starts to fall. Pietro says, "You’re in no condition to do something like this. Even just the temperature out there could--" and Penny counters "It is our only option."

No, it's not. This is Ruby's option. You can very much not send the totally useless message out, supposedly risking your life in the process ("supposedly" because, again, why this is such a danger for Penny when she was just flying outside with Cinder remains a mystery). Penny treats Ruby's plan as something inevitable. They can't fall back after Penny hacked into the Atlas systems, Penny fought off the Ace Ops, Penny defended Amity from another Maiden. She has to go one step further and risk another death because the concept of saying, "Hey, Ruby's plan isn't feasible anymore" is just never on the table. Ruby is in the mansion sitting around while Penny does all the dangerous work to put her plan into action.

So she pushes back against Pietro in a way she NEVER has with Ruby, insisting that this is how she's going to live her life. Even Maria chimes in with a "we need to remember the big picture." (Wait, the potential death of a Maiden and the loss of the key to the vault isn't a part of the big picture?) Pietro is supposedly in the wrong because he cares about Penny, not the war, but if that's such a bad thing... then what does that make this?

We have a whole scene where Penny wants the group to destroy her to (again, supposedly) help them in the war - take her out as a threat - and they give a resounding, 'Fuck that.' Ruby doesn't want to see her friend dead for the sake of this war. Pietro doesn't want to see his daughter dead for the sake of this war. Yet Pietro is the one who is framed as too narrowminded. Penny standing up to Pietro is meant to be celebratory, but Penny giving in to Ruby is meant to be celebratory too.

And then, of course, once it's Jaune with a sword to her throat, Penny's desire to die is honored.

Then, finally, we have the Ambrosius fiasco. I've spoken at length about this already, but suffice to say we never got a scene where Penny expressed a desire to be turned human. As the above scene demonstrates, her desire to risk her life/die is ignored only when it's Ruby making that call. Otherwise, with Pietro and Jaune, Penny's agency is upheld (however horrible the circumstances). Does she want live a life with a flesh body? Does she have any other ideas how they might eradicate the hack? Would she prefer Ruby try to put her into a new android body first? We have no idea! We never see Ruby ask. We never see that Ruby cares beyond what she wants for Penny. They clearly had the time to hash out all these loophole wishes, but we couldn't have gotten a ten second scene where Penny goes, 'I'm cool with this'? Assuming that Penny knows what they plan to do and that she has no reservations prior to waking up with flesh hands doesn't work, not when her character largely revolves around agency and Ruby has not been showing her that particularly well.

Ruby decides that Penny is on their team (scroll scene). Then she decides that Penny will not die (contrast to Jaune and Pietro). Then she decides that Penny will be saved by stripping away a core part of her identity. Penny goes from being hacked to watching that part of herself actually die, glitching out while her friends smile about it. Ruby spent Penny's entire run insisting that she was a person just as she was, but then Ruby is the one to turn around and take that away from Penny, prior to leading her into a battle where she died again, likely because she was now a fragile flesh girl. Ironwood was given the extreme of trying to take Penny over completely, once he went full Bad Guy, but Ruby is the one who made decisions for Penny throughout this run, with Penny given no chance to speak up for herself. Penny, once at Ruby's side, subscribed to the overarching belief that Ruby is always right (fitting in nicely with Ren's arc of learning to stop questioning things). The story didn't even consider giving Penny different opinions, hesitations, anger, or anything that would truly jeopardizes what Ruby wants, because what Ruby wants is, consistently, treated as the only way to go.