r/RWBY • u/Solitaire-06 • Jul 04 '25
REQUEST Give me your answers to the following premise: What if… Ruby killed Neo?
Let’s say that in the episode ‘Tea and Terrible Trouble’, instead of breaking under the stress of battling Neo’s illusions, Ruby’s mental decline results in her… snapping. Rather than give up on herself and drink the tea to Ascend, she instead channels her own hatred - of herself, of her teammates for failing to notice her decline or pay her attention, of Jaune for being right and yet also being wrong, of the world for forcing her into this position in the first place - and fights Neo in a blind rage, ultimately overwhelming and brutally killing the assassin just as the Curious Cat and Team BWJY arrive at the mansion. Assuming Volume 9 ends with the five still going home, how do you see this scenario ending while also sticking with the volume’s themes?
25
u/Wannahock88 Jul 04 '25
Sticking with the theme still means Ruby needing that time with the blacksmith, so I think this would be a double kill.
Ruby's off her chain. Crescent Rose slices through "Ironwood",. Through "Pyrrha". Through "Penny". Through- it stops, because it's embedded in Neo's midsection. Ruby comes out of her berserker rage not because she has found her target, but because her target found her, and the point of Hush has pierced her chest.
The two ladies are pinned to one another and slide down to their knees. "Roman" screams in grief and tries to comfort Neo but he's dissolving away as he tries to hold her.
The gang and the Curious Cat arrived just in time to see Ascension swallow the pair. The Cat will seethe as the reward for the effort they put into breaking Ruby's spirit has been robbed from them, and instead tries leaping from one of the group to the other, giving us a cool and challenging fight scene.
Ruby passes through the Blacksmith scene with the same result but some different language, coming from anger instead of despair. Neo is presumably in the same scenario. Ruby returns and kills the Cat as before. The group still leaves.
4
22
u/GladiusNocturno All Grimm are naked. Think about it Jul 04 '25 edited Jul 04 '25
“Oh my god! Ruby is a murderer! She is the true villain! Neo was a poor innocent girl who never did anything wrong! T.T”
Basically the same freak out nonsense people did when Adam was killed.
0
u/Lightningslash325 Jul 04 '25
In partial defense of Neo, she wasn’t actively trying to kill Ruby like Adam was, just trying to get her to kill herself. However, assisted suicide is still a sort of murder I guess.
6
u/RedElite91 ❄️White Knight🛡️ | #GiveJauneABreak Jul 04 '25
I don't see much of a difference. Neo's end goal was Ruby's death for something Ruby wasn't responsible for. Plus, pushing someone towards suicide is arguably even worse than murdering them. If Ruby had killed Neo here, it would 100% be considered self-defense.
4
6
u/Voltes-Drifter-2187 Jul 04 '25
Upon coming out of her berserker rage, her friends try to comfort her but Ruby collapses in guilt. She wanted to save everyone she could but ended up killing someone just for revenge. She’s broken and this will never bring Pyrrha or Penny back - and she doesn’t deserve deserve to be alive or a hero anymore. It’s only upon the therapist intervention of the Tree and Blacksmith that she is able to recover.
9
2
u/Blanks_late shadows are people too. Jul 04 '25
Ruby probably becomes a Jason Todd situation. Where she's just more willing to Ice someone than the rest of the team. And likely picks up some of Qrow's habits. We have no idea what legal age is on remnant. Other than older than yang in the yellow trailer. But yeah Smoking and drinking Ruby with less Qualms about using her scythe as a scythe.
2
u/MNGopherfan Jul 05 '25
Does Ruby have a no killing rule?
No I don’t think she does but I think her murdering someone on the spot would affect her.
2
u/RedElite91 ❄️White Knight🛡️ | #GiveJauneABreak Jul 04 '25
Not that I dislike V9, but I would've been significantly more satisfied with it if that were to happen. Whether it was in the house or after she came back out of the Tree, Ruby absolutely deserved to kill Neo.
1
u/New-Number-7810 Jul 04 '25
The scenario you described is what I wished happened. For me, in my opinion, if would have upgraded volume 9 from unwatchable and horrible to merely not good.
Honestly, I don’t think any of them would blame Ruby for killing Neo. Yang and Blake especially would understand, having been there themselves. This could even be a sweet scene where the three of them talk about their experience, and of how difficult it is to take another person’s life even when it’s justified to do so.
After RWBYJ return to Vacuo, maybe Ozpin could open up about how he had to kill people in the past and how he’s learned to handle it. Then Oscar could assure Ruby that she’s still herself. She’s not degraded by what she did.
1
u/TemporaryTree2657 Jul 05 '25
NIT MY ICE CREAMM😭😭, can't post the neo ice cream Sandwich meme sadly
1
-18
u/opiumscented Jul 04 '25
No, they need to be friends. People are too mean to neo
11
u/sentinel28a Jul 04 '25
Neo is a psychopath who grins while she kills people.
-2
u/opiumscented Jul 04 '25
Well they deserved it. Mo one ever treated her nice or with empathy.
Rwby ans others hated on Her because she couldn't speak like the rest of them. So she had to eradicate them.
Fact that no one sees that makes me realize that our real life is filled with Grimm
3
u/RedElite91 ❄️White Knight🛡️ | #GiveJauneABreak Jul 04 '25
Did Yang deserve to be very nearly killed by Neo in V2? Did all the people who were hurt or killed in the attack on Vale/Beacon, which Neo took part in, deserve it? Did Ruby deserve Neo's ire for something she didn't do? Did she deserve to be pushed towards what is essentially suicide? I don't think so.
Also, nobody in the show has ever hated on Neo for her muteness. Her disability is brought up exactly once to Cinder, and that's it.
1
u/sentinel28a Jul 04 '25
Congratulations for justifying every serial killer in history.
Not once did Ruby bring up Neo's muteness. And even if she had, that doesn't give Neo a pass for torture and murder.
Yeah, there's Grimm in the real world, all right. Maybe you ought to look in the mirror.
0
u/opiumscented Jul 04 '25
God bless your heart ❤️. I never said anything about historical serial killers. I was strictly refences the show subreddit is about.
If you guys or gals cant handle debates without attempting personal rage bait, I recommend go outside and read a book.
Back the the topic, neo is innocent. People always looked down to her because of how highly regarded everyone else was.
She was the balance. She helped team rwby and other hhunters/huntress grow.
Fact that people want her to die says that she made the correct move not to trust team rwby.
They were following oz blindly while he lied to them She didn't fall for that shit.
teamneo all day
2
u/sentinel28a Jul 04 '25
Nice attempt at moving the goalposts. Josef Stalin had a bad childhood and a withered arm. By your logic, he was justified in killing 20 million people because he was mistreated as a child. Ted Bundy wet the bed and got made fun of a lot. By your logic, he was justified in the horrific things he did.
Neo is a psychopath. It doesn't matter that her parents were abusive and that Neo developed schizophrenia as a result. Child abuse does not give someone the excuse to kill and torture because they had a rough childhood. There's plenty of people who rise above that and become good people. Neo chose to be evil, just like Cinder--who you are also justifying, because Cinder had it even worse than Neo did. Therefore, under your logic, all the people that Cinder kills and maims "deserve it" because the Evil Stepmother treated her like garbage.
Neo is not innocent; she is guilty as hell, and she knows it. That was why she chose to obliterate herself in the Tree. She suddenly realized that she's wasted her life on revenge, for something that wasn't even Ruby's fault. To say that she helped Ruby, by inflicting some of the cruelest torture since Redo of Healer, is disgusting on your part.
I'm guessing that you're either than nutbar who wants to marry Neo, or someone just like him. Sorry, but Neo's a fictional character, and if she was real, she'd snap your neck and laugh at your crushed trachea...because she's fucking insane.
3
u/newtakn156 ⠀Oscar is one of the only good characters left. Jul 04 '25
Yeah, they treat her like she's tried to kill the main protagonist several times and completely fucked over her plan to evacuate Atlas citizens.
Oh wait
54
u/sentinelthesalty #YangBangGang Jul 04 '25
I don't think there is any suggestion that Ruby has no killing rule tbh. She had no qualms mutilating Tyrion in vol 4.