Yeah, the Bees vs Adam fight had a lot of iffy dialogue but nothing quite had my head in my hands as much as, "Did she make that promise to you? Or to the person you were pretending to be?" You mean the guy who runs around in a monster mask explicitly because he wanted humanity to fear the Faunus like they do with the unambiguously-evil Grimm was, actually, not a good or mentally-sound person? Shocker. Like say what you want about Adam, but there is nothing subtle about him. From the moment go, he is 100% transparent in who he is and yet the characters acts like he isn't.

Yeah, I think a lot of fans who get frustrated by critiques forget that the disappointment has never been, "Omg they made Adam a bad guy!" but rather, "It's a problem that the minority representing an oppressed group is depicted as the bad guy and also a lot of people are doubly frustrated that his crimes changed from political extremism to stalking a presumed ex." Because you're right, nothing about Adam is subtle. He's introduced in black, red, a creepy mask, and callously shrugs off the potential death of countless humans. He's preeeeetty straightforward.

However, that line still should have made sense by the time we reached that fight because based on everything else we know, Adam wasn't always like this. Blake grew up in a rich, loving family that was at the heart of peaceful activism. AKA she's well-adjusted and primed to question extremist methods. Given that we've seen no manipulation on Adam's part--again, he's straightforward--that heavily implies that Adam was once a far more empathetic, level-headed activist who could legitimately inspire one of our heroes. Someone like Blake isn't going to just randomly join the guy who's just as happy with humanity's destruction as their change in treatment; she's going to join someone who seeks her own goals and reflects her own morals. Sometime between Blake first joining the White Fang and cutting the train cars, Adam changed. This is supported through, again, what we know of Blake as a person, her early Volume comments that the WF wasn't always like this, how Adam steadily grows more and more unhinged as the series goes on--a spiral that began long before the show started and is continuing until his death. Hell, it's shown through Blake having some sort of ~intimate~ relationship with him (mentor or romantic) and doodling him in her notebook. There's a version of Adam that exists pre-RWBY that's the kind of man Blake would befriend, defend, and possibly fall for. Or, to put it another way, make promises to about loyalty and companionship.

But he exists only in the occasional implication, subtext, and the application of some basic logic. RWBY doesn't actually show us this Adam, let alone allow Blake to work through losing him. By the time Yang says, "Did she make that promise to you? Or to the person you were pretending to be?" the audience should understand that no, Adam was never 'pretending.' That person existed... and then he changed. We should read that scene as Yang being wrong, applying a simplistic and no doubt comforting narrative to her friend/teammate/love interest. Blake didn't once love another faunus who fought for an important cause, only to watch him succumb to a violent ideology, resulting in a complicated, emotional landmine where she might still love the man he once was. That's way too complicated to deal with! And makes the bad guy too compelling to boot. So Adam just lied to her. Tricked! Bamboozled! Deceived! Because RWBY can't keep track of its plot-lines, doesn't investigate its heroes bias' (especially Yang's), won't allow those bad guys to have depth and nuance--Ironwood's turn to cartoon villainy highlights that. Adam isn't a subtle character, but as the primary representative of a racism-coded conflict, he should have been. Worse, what little complexity we got was stripped away by the end. Adam isn't a freedom fighter anymore, he dies a deranged ex stalking Blake. Except no, without confirmation of them being in a former relationship, or Yang and Blake having a relationship now, he's just a pathetic guy freaking out over losing her for... reasons. Adam isn't given that sympathetic past, so this conversation doesn't track with past implications and we're just supposed to take Yang at her word (after a Volume where Yang assumes A Lot). Adam isn't a subtle character, yet he's apparently "pretended" to be something he's not for years, tricking Blake and stealing a promise he never had a right to. Too bad we never got that story and what little we did get actively contradicts that.

I know I've said this before, but I don't even like Adam. I have no emotional stake in this fight, yet RWBY's handling of him was such a mess that, same, head in my hands and all that. I'm the one on the sidelines going, "No, I don't actually care, but it's the principal of the thing!" lol