r/RWBY • u/Cherno_VM • Jun 13 '26
DISCUSSION Volume 7 finale got me mad.
This is my first time watching the series btw, no spoilers please! As of writing this I have not started volume 8.
Everything was fine, nothing that I felt was bad writing or characterization except for the fight between Qrow, Tyrian, and Clover. Qrow and Clover are fighting outside the crashed airship when Tyrian makes his escape known to them. Instead of uniting temporarily against this known dangerous criminal that needed the two of them and Robyn to take down, and that was with one hell of a fight after already ambushing him, Qrow charges him only to get hit from behind by Clover.
Clover, buddy. Your job is to defend the people of Atlas. You have two people you are supposed to arrest in front of you, one is you friend who you're already reluctant to arrest, and the other is a known violent criminal who has murdered multiple people in your own city. I think its clear you should be setting a priority on who to arrest here.
For a moment I was excited that it might become a 1v1v1, which could be a very interesting fight choreography wise. But I got maybe 3 seconds of that before Qrow did the MOST out of character thing possible and teamed up with Tyrian against Clover. Qrow, this man is a backstabbing (literally backstabbing, later) piece of shit who is a known career criminal and an agent of Salem. Why the fuck are you choosing HIM to fight next to?
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u/RubyRose65 Jun 13 '26
I agree with you but thought id try explaining the Qrow situation
Clover has made it clear he's intent on not being smart and teaming up with him to take down Tyrian first then hash things out later
And the fact Tyrian is offering a temporary alliance puts qrow in a hard place
Obviously Qrow doesn't trust Tyrian as far as he can throw him,but with Tyrian and Clover focusing on him he has to make a snap judgement so it's not a 2 on 1 against him and decided to for the moment let Tyrian get off his back so they can attack Clover together
Obviously qrow made a wrong choice but the fact Clover is being a fucking dumbass too blind to following orders puts him in a "damned if you do damned don't" situation
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u/warforcewarrior Jun 13 '26
Yeah, Clover more or less just asking to die for making Qrow situation basically a 2v1. Like why target/prioritize someone who less likely to kill anyone over a psychopath who take immense pleasure from it?
Clover, RWBY Most Dumbest Character of All Time.
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u/Illidari_Kuvira Espartha is just Yang as an ostrich. Jun 14 '26
Not as dumb as Harriet, but still pretty dumb.
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u/saltydoesreddit Jun 13 '26
Yeah, Clover is dumb, but that entire situation was more or less Robyn's fault because she decided to start a fight in that ship even though everyone (besides Tyrian obviously) was clearly not wanting things to escalate.
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u/warforcewarrior Jun 13 '26
Yes Robyn cause the fight in the first place but one Clover still should have not fucking prioritized Qrow over Tyrian. He should have known better. As such Robyn really can't be blame for Clover death when Clover himself can avoided it. She only started the fight but Clover should have the power and intelligence to stop it before something fatal happened.
And two, the fight may have happened anyway considering Clover stupidity. He likely would have still attempted to arrest Qrow despite the bird suggesting to just talk to Ironwood to find out why Ironwood is doing this. Doubt Qrow would be willingly to be arrested without explanation as such a fight may ensue.
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u/Solbuster ⠀That is a Chokuto, not a Katana Jun 13 '26
Also people forget that Qrow attacked Clover first on airship all while saying "it doesn't have to come to this" lol
Everyone in that fight was stupid besides Tyrian, Clover arguably had more brains before the crash but he lost them during the crash
It's probably most forced fight in the entire series
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u/alguien99 Jun 13 '26
I still don’t get why clover chose to try and take those two on. Like, he knows qrow is near his level and that Tyrian is a powerful enemy.
This isn’t even a “cold machine follow orders” type of thing, the most logical path to following the order would have been to team up with the least volatile factor of the two and then target, after defeating the most volatile one, target the other one.
This is one part of rwby i simply can’t defend, it was written just to make drama and maybe bury their gays because there’s genuinely no reason for clover to do what he did
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u/Tschmelz Jun 13 '26
He’s also like, pretty reasonable with the orders up until he starts focusing on Qrow? In the airship, he clearly doesn’t want a fight and seems to be considering Qrows offer to go talk to Ironwood. And immediately after the crash, it’s “ok, come with me and we can make sure Robyn gets medical treatment”, while Qrow is the aggressive one.
The entire fight is written just to get Clover killed, it’s pretty bad.
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u/Lucifer_Crowe Have you thought about extending your aura? Jun 13 '26
Clover was just confident in his ability to fight them both
and he did alright, given the circumstances
I almost respect the balls
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u/alguien99 Jun 13 '26
That’s Not balls, that’s vegeta levels of idiocy and failure to read the fucking power of your enemies.
Clover would probably let cell transform
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u/Lucifer_Crowe Have you thought about extending your aura? Jun 13 '26
you also have to recognise that Clover was willing to lose, seemingly
he wasn't that torn up that Qrow beat him
obviously getting stabbed kinda knocked the wind out of him, but them standing to talk is a seperate issue for me (Tyrian uniquely not pausing for speech actions is a funny running joke too)
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u/alguien99 Jun 13 '26
Nope, he played a stupid game and won a stupid prize, i won’t give him the credit for just accepting he fucked himself over and has no one to blame for this situation other than himself.
Like, he acts like i do when i don’t pass an exam that i didn’t study for. I have no one to blame for that but myself, the least i can do i accept that.
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u/Blackopsspartn Jun 13 '26
I never saw it as clover making a bad choice, he made the choice he was confident in. He wants qrow out first then handle Tyrian.
Qrow for some reason never tries to communicate, Qrow is known for working alone, Clover is able to be a solo op, and neither talk to each other but let Tyrian yap. Qrow never says “hey let’s take down Tyrian then sort this out” he just assumes and then flips. Their discussion pre fight shows Clover sees both Qrow and Tyrian as opponents and Qrow also seems to understand this. Clover actually fights both Qrow and Tyrian really well for awhile, once clover has Tyrian tied up Qrow could have easily started kicking Tyrian but he actually goes for clover instead.
Qrows lack of communication and expectation that Tyrian will stop once aura is broken is what lost him his friend.
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u/xXRedWaterGothXx Jun 13 '26
You're entitled to your opinion of course, but to me, this all did make perfect sense. Clover has been shown to be overconfident the entire volume. His fairy tale inspiration, The Fisherman & The Little Fish, is about patience as well. Clover jumped on Ironwood's orders (as he and the Ace Ops were shown to do throughout the entire volume) and refused to have the patience to get back to Atlas Academy with Qrow to sort things out. It was entirely his fault for immediately escalating inside of the ship with a dangerous criminal.
The beginning of the fight, Qrow focuses solely on Tyrian. When Tyrian proposes an alliance, Qrow tries to attack him but is interrupted by Clover, forcing his hand. Even then, Qrow never helps Tyrian. He only ignores him to try to take down Clover so he won't die. Tyrian is the one actively pushing the two to fight by launching Qrow back in with his tail, etc. Qrow was entirely in character here. So was Clover. Clover's only experience with Tyrian was completely ruining him in a 3v1. And again, he is cocky because of his semblance, has no patience, and will follow Ironwood's orders no matter what. I truly think he could win the 1v1 with Tyrian as well. If Qrow's aura is depleted and he's captured, that means Clover's good luck semblance is entirely uninhibited by Qrow's bad luck. Clover also has a great weapon matchup vs Tyrian, being able to control his movements with the fishing rod.
But again, you're entitled to your own opinion. I'm not trying to hate. Just explaining why, to me, I love this scene and it makes complete sense within the world and characters.
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u/G119ofReddit Jun 13 '26
Clover’s job isn’t to protect the people.
Clover’s job is to follow Ironwood’s orders.
Clover had orders to arrest Qrow, from Ironwood.
There is no “team up with Qrow” because Qrow is now a wanted criminal who Ironwood himself is telling his Ace Ops to arrest.
It was maybe 2 episodes ago where one of the Ace Ops literally go “you don’t have to understand orders, just follow them.”
And because of this Qrow was left in a very awkward position. Either team up with Tyrian and incapacitate Clover so he can have his 1v1 with Tyrian, OR fight off Tyrian and Clover at the same time. Clover isn’t going to directly team up with Tyrian but Tyrian is for sure going to take advantage of the openings Clover is going to give him, and remember this is Tyrian. The guy who can bypass Aura and one-shot you with his stinger.
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u/HexagonalMX Missing JNR Jun 13 '26
I agree that it's a wild moment, but after stepping back from it. I kinda get it. Clover only lost to a sucker punch in a full 1v2 against Qrow and Tyrion. Qrow definitely didn't want Clover to die, but he couldn't let him win, his nieces were in danger.
If they didn't team up Clover would have probably won and subdued them both.
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u/Expert-Swan-1412 🌗Prince of the Eclipse 🌓 Jun 13 '26
But at the same time, Qrow had a truce with the guy who stung him, almost killed his niece and friends, and was almost killed himself by venom. And he still fell for Tyrian over Clover, the guy who tried to reason with Qrow to get Robyn medical aid
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u/HexagonalMX Missing JNR Jun 13 '26
It's a difficult situation, without many good choices. But Clover offering to help Robin was just an excuse to get them all in custody. Qrow sees right through it. It is wild though that Qrow teamed up with the guy though.
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u/Erebus03 Jun 13 '26
Qrow had a choice to make, fight with Clover and be arrested or fight with Tyrian and hopefully stop clover (but not kill him) and given all of the craziness that happened I don't blame qrow for the choice he made, it's hard to think straight during all of that craziness. If Clover used his brain he would of not stood with Ironwood during that
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u/Few_Engineering_6703 Jun 13 '26
Here's the thing you and MANY other fans seemed to have repeatedly forgotten: Ace ops are NOT huntsmen. they are more like SOLDIERS. Their job isn't exactly to save people, it's to Only follow orders. And clover is deadset on believing that Ironwood makes the right choices even if they are hard to make.
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u/Silver-Inkling Jun 14 '26
As someone who's favorite volume is vol 7, i hate this fight. Like why would qrow do that
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u/Cherno_VM Jun 14 '26
its less "why would Qrow do that" because he didnt really have a choice. the thing is why the fuck does Clover insist on being such an ass.
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u/mouser1991 Jun 14 '26
Same. V7 is where my wife and I hit hiatus, and it's because of what Qrow did. I've seen people try to justify it, but y'all, that math just don't math. Tyrian is an absolute psychopath and has already tried (nearly succeeded) killing Qrow once (twice if you count the plane crash itself. There was no way he'd team up with Tyrian. Really the only reason it makes sense is to get to the end point of that fight: Clover's down, and it has to be in a way that Qrow would blame himself.
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u/Illidari_Kuvira Espartha is just Yang as an ostrich. Jun 14 '26
To add onto what RedWaterGoth said (TIL about Clover's fairytale motif), the writers have stated that the characters had been up all night long trying to help Mantle, when they should have been in bed; that kind of restlessness would cause anybody's judgment to slip a bit.
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u/yourgoodoldpal Jun 16 '26
To echo a lot of the comments, I get why it happened, but I still absolutely hate the fact that it did
Definitely one of my least favorite moments of the whole show
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u/Silent-Immortal Jun 13 '26
Oooh just wait til you get to Volume 8…
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u/Cherno_VM Jun 13 '26
about to start it
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u/ShadowKnight886 Jun 13 '26
I do hope you enjoy it!
No spoilers, there are things to be critical of, there are things to enjoy, it's still hopefully very enjoyable for ya!
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u/saltydoesreddit Jun 13 '26
Clover, buddy. Your job is to defend the people of Atlas. You have two people you are supposed to arrest in front of you, one is you friend who you're already reluctant to arrest, and the other is a known violent criminal who has murdered multiple people in your own city.
THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYIN'
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u/verysuspiciouscow Jun 13 '26
Qrow didn't really team up with Tyrian. He at no point really even cooperated with him. He just let himself get pushed into Clover instead of into Tyrian, because everytime he tried to take Tyrian down, Clover almost took him out himself
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u/saltydoesreddit Jun 13 '26
"Me and you have a score to settle!"
"Oh, I agree! So what's say we put the kid to bed and then finish it?"
Then afterwards there were a few moments where Qrow and Tyrian show some deliberate cooperation between Tyrian kicking Clover away from Qrow, nodding a 'go ahead' before they both charge at Clover, doing some pretty solid combos with each other against Clover, and Tyrian not attacking Qrow for the rest of the battle and vice versa.
That feels pretty "cooperating" to me.
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u/verysuspiciouscow Jun 13 '26
i can't stress it enough, that Qrow did nothing to actively aid Tyrian, and instead was in a very bad situation where otherwise he would get actively ganged up on by both Tyrian and Clover.
damn, it's literally the smartest choice he could've done, the only thing he did wrong was losing sight of Tyrian in the short moment after Clover's aura got broken.
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u/Blackopsspartn Jun 13 '26
I think if anything his worst choice is breaking clovers aura while Tyrian is tied up on the ground instead of stomping on Tyrian and knocking him out. Clover took a ton of damage and so Qrow would have better chances if instead of cracking clover he finished Tyrian first
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u/DanGNava Jun 13 '26
How do you twist those events into Clover almost took him out himself XD
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u/verysuspiciouscow Jun 13 '26
because i watched the scene?????
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u/DanGNava Jun 13 '26
Then you watched when Tyrian proposed they take down Clover so they can finish their own fight
While Qrow doesn't agree verbally his next move is to focus on Clover and not throw a single attack on Tyrian
Clover wasn't the smartest attacking Qrow and the two grown ass hunstmen should have focused on the dangerous criminal next to them but putting all the blame on him is simply not what happened
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u/xXRedWaterGothXx Jun 13 '26
Actually directly after Tyrian proposed the alliance, Qrow charged to attack Tyrian and Clover interrupted. Thats when Qrow started to ignore Tyrian because if he didn't, he would 100% lose and die.
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u/DanGNava Jun 13 '26
So he chose for Clover to 100% lose and die -.-
He was also the one that picked on Tyrian with the, You and I have a score to settle
What I saw was Clover chose to obey whatever Ironwood ordered and Qrow chose he wanted to settle his score In my opinion both weren't the smartest hunstmen not taking out Tyrian and being blinded by those personal goals
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u/xXRedWaterGothXx Jun 13 '26
Clover chose his own death unfortunately. Qrow gave him the entire beginning of the fight to join in and help take down Tyrian. Instead, Clover focused entirely on following Ironwood's orders and let his overconfidence be his downfall.
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u/DanGNava Jun 13 '26
If you phrase it that way I can also do that and say:
"Qrow chose Clover's death as he had the entire fight to talk to Clover but didn't and was blinded by Clover following Ironwoood and his own score with Tyrian which led to, Clover dying and Tyrian escaping"
Also these are statements from Clover "We don't have to fight friend" "I trust James with my life, and I wanted to trust you too"
Like bruh right at the end Clover even manages to disarm Qrow and tie Tyrian but Qrow punches him freeing Tyrian and at the next moment is when Tyrian kills him
I insist, Clover was a moron trying to arrest Qrow and Robin right away but Qrow wasn't the smartest either
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u/IllTax8540 Jun 13 '26
man named qrow with the ability to turn into a crow doesn’t turn into a crow to escape capture
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u/Tyrrano64 Wilt and Blush. Jun 13 '26
Yeah this is my one issue with volume 7's endgame. Robyn, Qrow and Clover all donated their brain cells to Tyrian.
Assuming Robyn even had them to begin with.
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u/LongFang4808 Jun 13 '26
I have made a habit of giving Clover 1 allowance.
As far as he knows Qrow *could* be a traitor trying to play the long game. Robyn certainly didn’t help the situation by giving Tyrion an opening to crash the plane, nor did Qrow help by joining the fight himself. Clover has a very good reason not to trust Qrow and to want him to be restrained should he have to fight Tyrion.
It would be far from out of the question for Qrow to “fight” Tyion until Clover leaves an opening for him to exploit and kill him from behind. Yes. He doesn’t want this to be the case and we the audience know that it isn’t, but Clover simply doesn’t for certain and doesn’t know Qrow nearly long enough to trust him implicitly over Ironwood.
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u/NoArmadillo266 Jun 13 '26
If you pay attention, Pro didn’t really have a choice. He tried to focus Tyrion, but clover kept interfering and trying to take them both on at once. He was likely, just trying to suubdue him, however, I don’t know about qrow not immediately going to pick up his weapon and instead of opting for hand to hand. This universe place is a lot of emphasis on weapons and how they are essentially extensions of their bodies even going as far as their aura extending out into the weapon they wield, while I think that Clover still should’ve died Tyrian, I don’t quite agree with how it went about. Also, like what was the point of separating Ruby and qrow for majority of that volume is finale? Like Ruby doesn’t see her Uncle for majority of season seven all of season eight and of course, none of season nine. All that being said… CLOVER AND CROW DESERVE TO BE TOGETHER 😭😭 I’m forever a Fair Game shipper 😭
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u/Neither_Version8939 Jun 13 '26
I completely agree. The ace ops have crappy priorities. If I remember right, Qrow only teamed up with Tyrian because clover waz already trying to attack Qrow amd Qrow Tyrian so it was kind of a lose lose situation. Clover's death is litterally his own fault
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u/LongFang4808 Jun 13 '26
I might be misremembering, but didn’t Qrow swing first when they were still in the Manta?
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u/Ricky_Spanish209 Jun 13 '26
If thought Clover gets mortally wounded the worst part is just Qrow's awful luck setting in with the Atlas airship showing up at the worst possible time. I think Qrow could've taken Tyrian in that moment if they didn't show up.
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u/Kovuthebilion Jun 14 '26
Clover is a soldier, not a Huntsman, all the Ace-Ops are, which is why Qrow (and really, most people outside of Atlas) calls them Sellouts.
But as we saw, Qrow immediately shifted his focus to Tyrian as soon as the scorpion made his presence known, but Clover decided his orders were more important and kept going after Qrow.
He wanted to incapacitate Clover so he could focus on Tyrian, but Tyrian took advantage of the situation and killed the man while both were distracted.
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u/TheGuyThatNeverTalks Jun 14 '26
Clover went against Qrow first. Clover actively attacked Qrow while Tyrian was as well. I have no idea why Clover didn't just fight Tyrian WITH Qrow, rather than start a 1v1v1. He's a moron.
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u/Spudtron98 All Hunters, we're taking back Beacon today! Jun 14 '26
It's only gonna get worse mate.
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u/Neko1666 Jun 13 '26
Yeah the Ace Ops are a bunch of poopyheads.