The following post is a RWDE rant that is long, angry and non articulated. If you don’t like that, don’t read it, and leave me be. Thank you.
Warning for mentions of racism, bigotry, genocide and slavery.
RW//BY, as a show, is… I’m going to say it, actually really racist. Is it the most racist thing ever? No. Fuuck no. Not even close. But I’d daresay at least half of it is riddled with some of the most appallingly ignorant shit I’ve seen in any webseries, and yet… some people will go out of their way to harass any who dare to criticize it.
Remnant is not real. The characters I am about to discuss are not real. But the writers who wrote these characters and the world they inhabit are very real, and the shit they wrote fucking disgusts me.
so. Rant begin.
Something the crazies of the fandom will say (I say crazies because, the fandom isn’t all like this. many of you guys are chill and cool as fuck) in defense of RW//BY’s many problematic aspects, particularly the criticism of “75% of the show’s POC and minorities are villains”, is that “well, there’s a lot more POC and minority’s on the GOOD GUY side now! Hooray!”
And they’re technically right. I like Elm and Pietro and I love Maria (in V6 especially she was fucking golden) and Marrow. Them and all the other POC they’ve added in as of V6-7~ are, in my opinion, mostly great additions to the cast.
The side cast.
The thing that isn’t usually pointed out is that these characters… they are side characters. Pietro and Maria are side characters. The Ace Ops and Happy Huntresses, while playing a decent role, are side characters.
Hell that extends to pretty much every POC character we’ve gotten aside from Oscar. They’ve been side characters. Many of whom, we likely won’t see again (Until Volume 10… if RT lasts that long)
But I want to mention one thing. We didn’t start getting characters that weren’t blinding white until the end of V2 and the start of V3.
One of these characters in question I’d like to point out, Flynt Coal.
I like Flynt. He’s fine. I think his design is cool. But to deny that his character isn’t extremely racist is ignorant.
One of their first. Black characters. Was basically named… “Dark rock, Dark Rock”…
and his weapon is a TRUMPET😭
Not only that, but he and Neon fight Yang and Weiss in the tournament. Let’s talk about Weiss actually. She is the second oldest child to the megarich Schnee family, whom owns the SDC, which she is heiress to. Earlier in the series she acted extremely racist towards characters of an in-universe minority group, and never really apologized on screen. Instead, we’re given justification for why the rich girl is racist. She’s scared because of the White Fang! Poor little German name “White Snow.”
Anyways, back to the fight. Flynt mentions how it was the SDC who put his father’s own company out of business in their monopoly. Does this go somewhere? Nooooo he’s a side character, who’s beaten by Weiss and her bestie by the end of the battle.
How come they made one of their first black characters fight and lose a battle with their whitest richest character? (Obs not implying he should’ve won, just asking why they chose him in the first place) How come they named him after black rocks(which is in reference to how, in a minecraft letsplay, one mentioned the name “Flynt Coal” and another replied “He’d have to be a black guy!”)?
Who knows. But surely this is the last time they’ll make a (minority) character be positioned oppositely from our mains. Surely they won’t ever write one as a villain!
Surely she won’t be the Lakota girl, either!
Ilia as a character was a big stepping stone (at the time) in terms of RW//BY’s representation. She was the first canonical, on screen LGBTQ+ character. She was a member of the White Fang who, before joining, was able to “blend in” with humans due to her Faunus trait not being as noticeable, being spots on her face and along the rest of her body. Ilia was orphaned due to her parents dying in an SDC mine collapse, and when she saw her school friends laughing about it, she “punched their teeth out.”
Hell, overall I really like Ilia. Her design is adorable, as LGBTQ+ rep I think she’s good enough (though the fact they wrote their first lesbian character to be… a villain, is a talk for another day), and overall I find her decently written on her own. Plus, she’s fun as hell to write. Love her dearly.
On her own. Because in the story, the more I think about it… the more I’m sad, and mad, about how she was handled.
Firstly. Her name. Apparently it’s supposed to mean “Butterly Rainbow” (again, naming your first lesbian girl “rainbow” lol)… but nope. They got the name Amitola off a baby named website, when it really means something closer to “Like a blue sky.” From my understanding. Typical RT shenanigans. It gets worse :3
Ilia was also one of the very few villains in the show to be redeemed. How was she redeemed?
By being told by the much-more privileged, whiter minority girl whom she had a crush on that what ilia was fighting for was Bad. How Ilia was fighting for it was Bad. The White Fang? Baaaad. How dare the MINORITIES FIGHT WITH NEEDED VIOLENCE for their basic living rights against the POOR WIDDLE OPPRESSORS! It’s THEIR fault they’re oppressed, because they’re making the humans uncomfortable and angry! They need to just keep their dirty mouths shut and be good, presentable minorities.
And upon being redeemed, Ilia is immediately put on a bus. Shelved.
And let me remind you again. Who was redeemed through being told by her much whiter (I say whiter in a way not to demean Blake btw, as privileged as she is she is still a minority obviously. Just… stating facts) friend that “a minority Shouldn’t use violence against their oppressors for their rights. It’s Their fault the humans are still so racist towards them. The Faunus should stop being so aggressive and be peaceful”?
Not only the lesbian character, but…
The indigenous girl.
The.
Indigenous.
Girl.
I’m sure I don’t need to point out how fucked this is. Let alone the fact this whole show is written in fucking Texas.
It’s no secret, as much as some try to make it be, how horribly Native Americans and indigenous people have been treated throughout history. The oppression they have faced stems back centuries. Their land and home was stolen from them.
Their own culture was all but forcefully eradicated.
Men, women, children, were all genocided.
To this very day it’s all they can do to fight for not only their own rights as people, but the very lands that were stolen from them.
So for this show to write… it’s Indigenous
WOMAN
‘s character being “redeemed” by learning “Peaceful protest is good, violent protest for your living rights bad!” is… sickening. Genuinely. Fucking.
Sickening.
But maybe that violent protest WAS bad! Maybe, it was going nowhere and really causing the problems. Who the hell would ever try and implement that? Who leads the White Fang?
…You wanna know?
Don’t bother.
Sienna is a character we see for. One. Scene. One scene and she’s GONE. dead, stabbed, thrown down some stairs. We know very little about her, but we know a lot of her actions.
Under her rule as high leader, she got shit gone. Through her use of violence against the oppressive humans, she did in five years what many before her couldn’t in decades: Her methods were working. Her people were being given rights.
But noooooooo!!!!!!!!! We can’t have the Woman of Color in power be CORRECT. Her methods were WRONG, MONSTROUS! How dare she end slavery and fight against oppression?! She should’ve just asked NICELY! Just like Blake told—
Wait… Blake? BLAKE?!
BLAAAAAAAAKEEEEE!!!!!
Blake is one of 4 main characters in RW//BY, and she was easily my favorite. Fierce and a bookworm, an ex-freedom fighter who was quick to call out Miss Rich “White Snow” on her bullshit. She was fun, strong, and like the show said itself, she was Feisty.
I miss that Blake, tails. I miss her a lot. I’ll be back.
Nowadays, that feisty personality she has has been diminished so she can be all meek and quiet and sweet for her white human friends.
(and just now in v9, she’s completely fine with being referred to as an animal. Sienna in honorary heaven: she would not fucking say that.)
White fans and likely the writers themselves were too uncomfortable having to face that all majority people still benefit from a society built on and from deep systemic racism, so they wrote Blake to be an All Lives Matter doormat so she was more palatable Blake saw the error of the White Fang’s ways and how their justified acts of violent protest against the privileged majority were making the humans SCAWED🥺, so she stood before them all and put her status as literal Faunus princess to good use: telling all those like her who’d suffered beneath the humans’ oppression that they were wrong. How could they fight back violently? They did this to themselves. They brought the oppression, the enslavement, the bigotry and cruelty upon themselves because they just didn’t play nice enough.
Fuck, even when she’s in the “City of Racism” Atlas, she’s too busy being uwu sad and nervous and having to rely on others (funny how instead of ever empowering her again, they write Blake as this submissive docile flower baby immediately after hey reveal she was an abuse victim. Real fucking funny. Laughing my eyes out of my skull with a toothpick.) except for when she jokingly comments how rich the Schnees are and how they own basically everything.
Past Blake wouldn’t be laughing about that. She’d use it against the Schnees, rightfully.
But we can’t have that. She’s the good minority, who keeps her mouth shut tight and looks pretty for the camera.
But… about that bigotry. That oppression, that racism… do we ever see that?
lol fuck no
We hear of how horribly the Faunus people are treated. Controversial labor forces that keep them as slaves to the SDC. Treated like dirt and beaten and killed and lynched.
We hear. We hear of that.
In the show, we get… a No Faunus sign put out in some background places. And the equal opportunist bully bullying a bunny girl.
That’s it. Background shit. Background shit that could easily be interpreted differently, or missed completely if you fucking blink.
There has only been one point where the true extent of this oppression is shown to us. One point which…
we’ll fucking get to.
But there’s one thing I’ve mentioned rather frequently throughout this rant. Two, technically. The Schnee family and the SDC.
Let’s talk. Let’s. Fucking. Talk.
*sighs*
So this show demonizes it’s fictional worlds only freedom fighting organization, so surely they do the same for the oppressive Amazon company that has a chokehold on the economy of an entire—
In the early volumes, Weiss, another main character, was extremely racist to those who were Faunus. She was also the daughter of the Richy Rich Bitch Family of “CEOs of Racism”. Her older sister was a cop, her younger brother out of the picture until V4, her mother a neglectful abusive alcoholic (she is a victim too but neglect. is. abuse.), her father a racist abusive asshole who looks like I could break him like a bendy straw. But her racism isn’t her fault at all! No, the dirty minorities in the White Fang who were terrorizing the richest of the rich were what made her racist. It was never her fault, only the scary minorities.
How dare the marginalized be so evil.
But she apologizes off screen and is no longer racist! Yippee! At least we marked “Racist” off her “Racist Blood Purist Rich White Weiss” card! she’s White Savior Blood Purist Rich White Weiss now! Now we can make fun of how much shit her family owns.
But before all that, she and her girlfriend battle… a black man! Gasp! Who… says before the fight, her family’s company put his family’s business OUT of business!
A throwaway line before he and his bestie get beaten. Also just realized as I type: not only did Weiss battle a black character who was affected by her family company’s monopoly, but… a Faunus. Another one for the jar.
B-But Blake knows Ilia was affected by the SDC, too! It orphaned her, because in their mines Faunus weren’t given nearly as much safety. Surely she can tell Weiss and have her see—
*Ruby voice* nope. Nope! Ilia was being violent for equality, and that’s no good. So she learns that all their oppressors (likely including the SDC)are really just SCARED of them! So she’s redeemed and becomes peaceful. The Lakota indigenous girl is turned “good.”
But maybe once they’re in Atlas—
Jokes are made about how FUNNY LOL XD it is that her family owns so much, and they’re appalled by how… literally fucking normal Mantle is, as if it’s just an utter travesty to their eyes. She doesn’t want to outright abolish the corrupt SDC, which basically rides on Atlas like a parasite, but instead free it from the dirty-blooded clutches of her father, and return it to the Pure Blooded Schnees, who will use it righteously, in Santa Schnee’s name!
She’s the granddaughter of a hero, after all. A hero who monopolized and capitalized the world’s resources and began a chokehold on an entire kingdom with how vital the Resources became, all the while implementing minority slave labor.
Because we can’t have our pretty princess Weiss face any consequences. We can’t have one of ours mains face consequences. Realize her privilege and try and do something. We can’t make our writers uncomfortable!
And this extends to Winter, too! The woman as racist as Weiss was, but without the “”excuse””, who is also a cop, and who… punches, kneels over one of the characters who is both an in-universe minority of a Dog and easily the darkest skinned character, and tells him; “You want a collar? Fine.”
But the Pure Blood Schnees are good. They’re beautiful and powerful. Even if Weiss has that scar, it’s as tiny as can be so to not ruin her pretty face. Let’s give the rich white family all the angelic imagery. Let’s show Weiss with wings.
Twice. Twice with white, huge and glowing angel’s wings.
Looking pure and holy. Pure. And. Holy.
But Angel imagery? Surely there’s a contrast. Demonic imagery: like the horns, black and red, something to do with darkness and the moon, who should that belong to? If the rich, white, blood purist main girl Weiss gets the angel wings, pretty face and princess aesthetic… who deserves to be the demon of Remnant?
…Oh, I know the answer to this one! It’s—
Throughout this whole post, there’s been one character I’ve purposefully neglected mentioning by name.
Adam.
We didn’t see the guy much. Black trailer, V2, V3, V5, V6. And he was really only reoccurring in V5, which… 😶
But from what we did see, we saw the Face of the White Fang. We saw someone who did bad things for the right causes. We saw someone who despised his oppressors, but who seemed to care for his fellow Faunus. We saw…
a fucking lie. A headcanon, perhaps. Badum tss.
What Adam REALLY WAS was an abusive cruel irredeemably evil monster jerkface asshole creep bitch who NEVER cared about his own people, NEVER cared about his people’s rights, NEVER wanted anything more than glory and power and to be lionized.
The minority character, by the way.
Why did the writers decide to make this guy the hatesink? Why did they decide to make Adam suddenly not care about his fellow people’s rights?
Why did they decide to make him laughably cruel to his own people whom he seemed to genuinely care for before (like in that scene in volume 3, where he only agrees to go along w/ cinder after she starts KILLING FAUNUS, but maybe that scene was a headcanon too, all in le head)
Why did they decide to make the goals of one of their in universe minority characters to be wanting nothing but fame and power?
Why did they also write him to be a former child slave?
Volume 6 is one of my more liked volumes, with it (for me) easily being the best looking, and the horror stuff was great. Also, Maria.
But then they threw Adam in last minute. One last kick of that dead bull.
He comes back in his finest NieR: Automata cosplay and starts spouting some of the most embarrassingly bad dialog this show has had while fighting Blang (basically that one fucking hilarious “Boobs in my mouth please please please hello You’re nothing” post as dialog), and it’s in this that, after 6 volumes, we finally see his face.
Adam was branded. I’m not putting that shit lightly, Adam was fucking branded.
And the brand is used to show how evil HE is. He was hurt more by his gf leaving him than ANY scar ever would. Who cares about all the trauma he surely went through in slavery, he sure fucking doesn’t! Okay, Cameraman Mike, be sure to focus a whole bunch of shots on his brand, which is still blood red and grotesque, to really hammer the point in how much of an asshole he is.
Never mind it’s a brand of the SDC, of which one of our main character’s family owns. Who cares if this is literally the only time we’re shown the true extent of racism against Faunus?
It’s swept aside! Because the same episode we’re given one of the most honestly depressing reveals for a villain yet is the same episode that villain dies.
Dies with the brand facing the camera. His death. Entirely. On. Screen.
Thank fuck Adam was written as an irredeemable monster of a villain(/j), because they literally wrote, animated, and voiced a scene where we the viewers watch a former child slave, branded and blinded over an eye, have his death be entirely on screen. A slow death, entirely on screen.
Adam, a former slave to the SDC who, sometime during his childhood was branded and permanently blinded, died more slowly… more gruesomely… than Jacques fucking Schnee did.
Even died before him, too.
But notice one thing. I keep referring to him as having been a “child slave.” Emphasis on child.
Don’t blame me. Blame your fucking writers.
I want you to read this. Read this paragraph. Twice, if you have to. As many times as you need to to get the fact into your head that THIS IS FUCKING VILE.
This is in the writers commentary track for volume 7. They tiptoe around with their words, but I’ll translate it to the best of my ability.
In it, Miles shared a particular headcanon: in which the
FUCKING VILLAIN HE WROTE TO HAVE BEEN A CHILD SLAVE TO THE SCHNEE DUST COMPANY GOT HIMSELF BRANDED FOR BEING TOO MUCH OF A LITTLE SHIT TO KEEP HIS DIRTY TRAP SHUT.
SO THEN ONE OF HIS CAPTORS HELD THIS CHILD DOWN TO THE GROUND AND JAMMED A CATTLE PROD DOWN WITH THE SDC PROPERTY LOGO ONTO HIS EYE.
THAT LITTLE BOY SURE HAD IT COMING, HUH? HE’S ALWAYS BEEN SUCH AN INSUFFERABLE LITTLE PRICK, EVEN AS A CHILD IN SLAVERY. HIS CAPTORS REALLY LET HIM HAVE IT!
LET.
HIM.
HAVE.
IT.
THEY WRITE AND HEADCANON A FICTIONAL CHILD SLAVE BEING BRANDED IN THE EYE AFTER HE STARTS THE FIGHT. HE STARTED IT.
THEY WRITE AND HEADCANON A FICTIONAL CHILD SLAVE BEING BRANDED IN THE EYE AND GROWING UP TO BECOME A HORRIBLE, DISGUSTING DEMON.
THEY WRITE AND HEADCANON A FICTIONAL CHILD SLAVE BEING BRANDED IN THE EYE AND HIS CAPTOR JUST “LET HIM HAVE IT.”
“LET HIM HAVE IT,” NOT IN REFERRAL TO A MINORITY BEING HATE CRIMED.
“LET HIM HAVE IT,” NOT IN REFERRAL TO A MINORITY SLAVE BEING PERMANENTLY SCARRED.
“LET HIM HAVE IT” IN REFERRAL TO A MINORITY CHILD SLAVE BEING BRANDED AS PROPERTY IN THE EYE BY HIS CAPTORS.
And I think this says it all. From the white and the black, blue and the red, oppressor and oppressed and angel and demon, Weiss and Adam almost mirror each other.
Just look at their scars. Theirs are on the same side.
But while Weiss’s is the smallest, prettiest scar of all,
The brand of the SDC all but covers half of Adam’s face, in all it’s grotesque, blood red and hideous glory.
I’ll let you guess the implications.
Killing off a WOC in power the very scene she’s introduced. Showing the Lakota girl the “right way to protest”. Painting the oppressors in a more positive light than ever showing the oppressed be oppressed. Showing your hatesink character had been branded in the eye the same episode he dies on screen. And this is what broke me.
They’d read in the history books of children forced into slavery slaves being branded
and they’d see the backstory for a villain.
Because we can’t write the minorities fighting against their oppressors to be justifiable!
We can’t face how a member of the majority will almost always benefit from an oppressive system!
We can’t write the pretty white rich family of Fantasy-Amazon owners as wrong for their horrible practices both past and present!
We can’t let the WOC be right about violent protest!
We can’t let the native girl be angry and fight back against her oppressors!
We can’t have a shred of sympathy for the ex slave who was branded while he was a boy!
Because they did this.
Faunus.
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When did Edward get his branch line? My friend says 1923. I saw somewhere that it was 1945, it might have even been here on your blog. What is canon?
- A Former Anon
Welcome to non-lurkerdom, Former Anon! Pull up a chair. Get yourself a profile pic. Stay a while.
*strokes chin philosophically* What is canon, indeed...
First, let's stipulate that we're talking RWS. I don't actually think TVS contradicts anything I have to say here but its weird-ass chronology certainly doesn't help so let's pretty much set it aside.
Second: you might be thinking of a time way back—like, way back—when I cited 1948. That was what TTTE Wiki said in 2020, and I hadn't read all of RWS in order so I trusted it. However, I don't think there was ever any canon basis for this date specifically—and I think the Wiki editors realized it too, since that fact has long since been scrubbed from the site. It's still not a bad choice, though; just way too specific to be called canon.
Third, and tl;dr: As far as I can tell, you could say anywhere between... 1923 and 1965 and still be canon-compliant?? Yeah, that's right, a spread of forty-plus years. It's actually kind of incredible to me that the window is that wide open but there you are.
Now, it is extremely common for fanworks to have Edward "get his branch line" in the early 1920s, like after TTRE or TTTE. But I don't think that's a good reading. Technically it's not incorrect but it doesn't harmonize well with what we see him doing in canon throughout the FC1 era—which, again and again and again, is main line work.
The confusion here, I think, is that as early as Thomas the Tank Engine (set 1925) Wellsworth is referred to "Edward's station" (and in this book Edward even refers to it as "home").
But! All these references, from here and throughout the next 10+ books in the series, only mean for sure that Edward is resident shunter/banker there. We don't actually have a clear reference to "Edward's branch line" until Main Line Engines (1965).
Yeah, you can argue this is splitting hairs I guess? But, the thing is, Edward as a sort of main line utility/rescue engine as well as Wellsworth station pilot makes far better sense of what the heck he's doing in the FC1-era stories. During all this time, we don't even have a confirmed sighting of him on the Brendam branch. No, not even throughout all the Edward the Blue Engine (1952) stories. (Personally I imagine his accident in "Cows" took place on the branch but, fact is, it's entirely ambiguous.) A non-exhaustive list of what we do see him doing in the FC1 era includes: "odd jobs" at the Big Station, filling in for Henry when Henry fails on his passenger train, picking up goods at Tidmouth harbour, dropping whatever the hell he usually does to help out in the aftermath of the big engines' strike, being on hand at what Rev. Awdry identified as Vicarstown to shunt Gordon prior to the Ditch Incident, etc., etc.
The first time he's confirmed to ever set a wheel on the branch line is when we find that he's timetabled on the evening Tidmouth-Brendam "fast" in MLE. Which, as mentioned, is actually the same book we find out that "Edward's branch line" is, like, a Thing. So, a reading that makes the answer to your question "1964/5, right before Awdry started writing, when Edward and BoCo were assigned to manage the line together" is actually perfectly plausible (*small voice* and kinda cute. This would also mean that, even as BoCo is being trialled, the enthusiasts' train was also part of a trial period to decide whether Edward should be in charge of the line's passenger work... and that's certainly a Take. an unprecedented Take i believe, but a valid one.)
For my money, though, the most plausible year is 1952. After the "Old Iron" overhaul.
Lemme end with what I think is the most probable timeline for Edward's Sodor career. I'm not gonna break out all my canon citations coz this post is already ungodly long for such a simple ask... but feel free to ask for the receipts for anything in this timeline:
1915-1920 — pretty much the main line engine. especially as the other wartime loans are sent home. probably in charge of the express (which existed in a lighter and probably less tightly-timed form than we know it from Gordon's day).
1921-1922 — as the railway manages to acquire a motley collection of big, new, powerful, and extremely volatile engines—largely troubled prototypes—Edward is knocked down the roster to eventually being "the spare." since "these big engines" are "always going wrong," especially during this crazy period, that actually keeps him plenty busy until, well... things start to settle down. FC1 clearly doesn't feel the need to reassign Edward right away (anticipating, correctly, more instances of Confusion and Delay at Vicarstown, where it's nice to be able to shout "Find another engine!" and not have the answer be "... there's only Thomas??"). but before he does Edward turns on the puppy dog eyes and his new driver proves that Ed could be really valuable as station pilot at Wellsworth...
1923-WWII — Edward is based at Wellsworth to manage the depot, shuttle some goods to and from Tidmouth, and bank trains as needed. i'm gonna guess that he's often tapped at crazy hours when FC1 has what i am sure were his roughly-biannual clandestine "business meetings" where he either obtains or deploys blackmail in order to drive his devilish bargains. but Edward also remains a main line pinch-hitter, and does odd jobs all over the place until...
WWII — sometime during or after the war, another engine replaces Edward on banking duties (the goods trains at the time having gotten significantly heavier). Edward is assigned a couple of main line "Locals" each day while still fulfilling the rest of his old utility role
1948 — the clay pits at Brendam are opened. Edward makes a lot of the deliveries required for them to set up shop. he also meets Bill and Ben when they arrive. his ability to keep the new engines (roughly) in line is a powerful pull factor in getting him down the branch line more often, though his role doesn't officially change yet.
1952 — post-overhaul, Edward is assigned to the morning and evening Tidmouth-Brendam fast trains. so from here on he's on the branch line daily and thus, given his long experience at Brendam and especially at Wellsworth, is considered to be in charge of the line
1959 — despite his new role as a branch line engine, Edward is not completely relieved of all his main line utility work (in particular, please take note of Edward carting Rheneas around, the type of job to soon become very Caledonian-coded) until both Donald and Douglas are purchased. this frees Edward up to take on more branch line goods
1965 — BoCo is acquired and takes over Edward's share of the branch line goods work, which leaves Edward free for the ever-increasing special trains (stuff like excursions or wedding trains or other charters, which are frequent during the summer and holiday seasons). of course, while both are pretty happy with their usual jobs (the magazines established that BoCo doesn't really care for passenger work, and i find that harmonizes well with his appearances in canon/basis history so i accept it as canon) they do swap timetables sometimes for a change of pace
aaaand then we get to the Christopher Awdry era, where Nothing Ever Changes, and the TVS era, where Time is Meaningless, so i suppose that's that forever. cheers! (she said, with slight sarcasm)
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