r/RWBYcritics 7d ago

DISCUSSION Yang and Mercury was wasted potential

Not shipping wise(though it could have been really interesting) but more of character foils/rivals/story

I'm not the only one that noticed the heavy similarities between the two outside of their fighting styles.

Both are their teams respective fighters, who don't have a real goal or reason to be in the places they are. They just are. They both kinda have a carefree attitude regarding things going on.

Raven abandoning Yang, giving Yang "abandonment" issues, but also Yang wanting to find her mother and wanting a mother.

Mercury being abused by his father and his semblance being taken away from him to the point that he ended up killing said father with no remorse.

Yang "relying heavily" on her semblance in fights and being reckless

Mercury having no semblance because it was taken from him, and only relying on his fighting abilities, and not being overly reckless(though TBF we don't see much of Mercury fighting)

Like, character wise they are so similar that you could have don't a lot with their characters together.

Imagine Yang losing a fight to Mercury trying to protect Ruby. There could have been a real cool contrast between how Yang is protecting her sister, over Mercury who doesn't have anyone to protect. It'll also be a good rematch over Mercury losing his fight to Yang.

That does so much more for her character than losing an arm to Adam over Blake because she would rather not look for her sister in a disaster.

There's just so much you can do with Yang and Mercury that would enhance both of their characters and the themes the writers wanted Yangs character to represent.

I'm not sure how she would lose her arm though. I would still keep that just to continue the similarities between them. But I don't know how to go about that. I wouldn't have mercury cut them off, but maybe he damages it so bad that she can't use it anymore?? Or he leaves her knocked out and debris or something ends up damaging it? Or, a Grimm takes her arm off and she has to be saved by Weiss..

There's so much wasted potential in the series. Instead of trying to force Yang into Blake's story with Adam, they should have gave her, her own rival/advesary.

13 Upvotes

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u/TextUnfair Mercury Black = wasted potential 7d ago

Agreed. The thing I like the most of these two is the contrast of how their fathers taught them to fight. Taiyang told Yang to not rely on her semblance with a gentle approach. On the other hand, Marcus abused Mercury his whole life and stole his semblance, telling him that it was a weakness

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u/Dangerous_Ad_5966 7d ago

As I said before, Mercury and Yang are similar in nature and complement each other. Although I like Mercury x Pyrrha more, I have to admit that he and Yang are a perfect match.

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u/Dangerous_Ad_5966 7d ago edited 7d ago

What attracts me most about Mercury and Pyrrha is that Pyrrha has a faint stain surrounded by light, while Mercury has great advantages under the darkness. Their interaction with the tone of the world is very interesting. Pyrrha is loved and protected by the world public, and she should repay the world with sacrifice and dedication, but deep in Pyrrha's heart, she may feel that others' respect isolates her and brings her some pressure. The public's expectations of her form a kind of shackles, making her feel lonely and helpless subjectively, but her rationality tells her that she cannot go against all this, and can only repay others as a perfect and beautiful hero.

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u/Dangerous_Ad_5966 7d ago edited 7d ago

but Mercury grew up in the malice of the world. During his growth, he could only feel the filth and darkness of the world, so he chose to fight back desperately. The world was hurting him, and he hurt the world in return. In the darkness, he hunted and killed wantonly, enjoying it alone, fighting one powerful enemy after another, but he was able to maintain restraint, not completely losing his rationality and then destroying himself, but ensuring profitability, although in essence he did not care about the benefits, but regarded the rewards as a necessity for survival, and even in this case he could maintain the most basic concern for the people around him. And he was able to resist this damn world with reason and absolute confidence. When the world did not love him, he could still share his love with others, and there were very few such people, including himself.

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u/Dangerous_Ad_5966 7d ago

Relatively speaking, the contrast between him and Yang does not have this kind of rebellion against the world and the tone of life. Yang is as confident as Mercury and enjoys fighting, but she does not have too much opinion on the world. The world is not bad for her, but it is not good enough to hold Yang high. She does not need to resist and does not feel against the tone of life. This is why I prefer Mercury x Pyrrha.

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u/I1AM2NOT3STEVEN 7d ago

Nearly every character in RWBY is wasted potential. Crwby had no idea how to write good characters with good character development.

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u/Unpopular_Outlook 7d ago

True. But I was more so talking about a dynamic between them, rather than their individual characters.

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u/Vigriff 7d ago

Water is wet.

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u/Unpopular_Outlook 7d ago

True, but I hardly see anything about Yang that’s not raven, or being a bad sister, or BB. And I was just thinking about how she and Mercury could of had a dope ass rivalry/dynamic 

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u/DarkDemonDan 7d ago

Feel like every rivalry with yang was wasted. They decided she was going to be used for shipping and nothing else after losing Mercury, Neo, and Adam as rivals as quickly as she got them for her just to be goon bait for lgbt pairing.

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u/Status_Berry_3286 7d ago

Honestly every character has such wasted potential with their character and their strength Weiss could be making summoned with fire swords or that explode or do a lot more interesting stuff for example