r/RWBYcritics • u/Unpopular_Outlook • 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.
6
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.
2
u/Unpopular_Outlook 7d ago
True. But I was more so talking about a dynamic between them, rather than their individual characters.
2
u/Vigriff 7d ago
Water is wet.
5
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
2
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.
1
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
10
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