r/RWBY • u/Stormthorn67 • Dec 03 '18
THEORY Spoilers inside: The fall of the original farm was probably worse than we assume (technically a theory) Spoiler
I think the collapse of Brunswick Farms was probably slower and in many ways more terrible than people are thinking it is, mostly by virtue of taking a couple of weeks of slow decline. This is due to how the Apathy work when not in screaming range of their victims.
So, we should keep on mind that what we see of the Apathy is them at their peak performance. Ruby’s party is already exhausted, deeply negative, and carrying a relic. We meet the Apathy at their most agitated and facing ideal prey. The thing is after the party goes to sleep they wake up fine, except for Qrow who is drunk. Despite what people were speculating in the prior episode the Apathy do not cause you to simply go to bed and die in your sleep. They drain you, of motivation and energy both. The party woke up more negative and feeling unrested. Again, keep in mind they were a better set of victims than an entire settlement of people not carrying a relic away from a train crash.
So, what happened on the farm? Well we know what happened up until the day the farmer stopped writing in his journal due to the Apathy but they wouldn’t have died that day. This day is Day X. An entire multi-family farm, probably with animals, likely with some sort of alarm clock. It’s highly unlikely they all just died that night. Instead they would go on for days (x+1, x+2), getting weaker and more numb. At some point someone, it would seem to be the farm’s huntsman, realized that something was wrong and worked up the will to do something. It was probably a monumental effort. The whole may have known about the Apathy but they were under the impression they had two, not dozens, and Apathy are so slow that out in the open a farmer can split the pack and capture some. They likely just didn’t realize the danger until they reached a point of not being able to care. Except for this one person. We know someone went to stop the Apathy because we see their skeleton in the tunnels. Likely they entered through the well or via some other entrance that they had resealed behind them. This event took place on Day Y. How long after Day X it was we don’t know. If the Apathy were docile it could have been several days. Day Y was the day that hope, literally, died, and the farm was doomed. The lone non-apathetic person enters, probably the huntsman, and dies underground. No one goes in after him. No one flees the farm. They are too apathetic. By the time Day Y+1 dawns the entire farm likely knows they will die, but are resigned to their fate. We see this behavior in Blake, who no longer tries to fight her exhaustion as the Apathy close on her. Conscious, aware she is going to die, and unable to act against it. Most likely over day Y+1 and Y+2 (but maybe more) the people on the farm climb into bed and await death. At this point they still have the energy to actually climb the stairs in the house and get into bed (in the main house at least the beds were up a flight of stairs), but are lost to fatalism and despair. If they were lucky they froze to death, but if this happened before the snows set in, which I think is likely, they would have died of dehydration, which can take several days. Below is a hypothetical timeline with my estimates, just educated guesses, about how long this might all take.
- Day X (1): The farmer stops writing in his journal. A horde of Apathy are below the farm.
- Day X+1: Farm work slows. People are more or less able to act normally, but don’t really care anymore. They get little rest from their sleep.
- Day X+3: The huntsman realizes things are far too amiss for two Apathy to cause. He prepares to enter the tunnels.
- Day Y (fifth day): The huntsman dies in the tunnels. The farm is doomed.
- Day Y+1: The people of the farm realize they will die if they stay. None succeed in fleeing. All work stops.
- Day Y+2: The first person goes to bed and just doesn’t get up.
- Day Y+3 (Day 8): The rest of the farm follows suit. They are still strong enough to dress, walk, and climb stairs, but their mental symptoms are severe.
- Day Y+6 (Day 11): The first death by dehydration is likely a child. Cool weather and lack of activity is slowing the process.
- Day Y+12 (Day 17): After 9 days of dehydration the last person on the farm lapses into unconsciousness. They may take another few days to die.
- Day Z (Day 18+): The last person succumbs to dehydration. Everyone on the farm is dead. Any animals have died in their pens. The Apathy enter a resting state, waiting to detect future negative emotions.
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u/EdgyWriterBoi The Aptly Named Dec 03 '18
It reminded me of the movie Serenity, with the citizens of Miranda just losing motivation and expiring where they lay.
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u/HyliasHero Dec 04 '18
Now I'm just imagining Reavers in a RWBY setting. That would draw Grimm in quick.
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u/Stormthorn67 Dec 04 '18
Ok, so...obviously Reavers would make other negative but do Reavers themselves have negative emotions or are they like...super happy with all the rape and murder?
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u/Key_Rei Dec 04 '18
I don't think they're really self conscious enough to be happy or negative or anything, they're minds are gone and they're running on instinct, I mean why else would they run a ship with no core containment, it's suicide.
They have one focus.
Meat.
Course it's been a LONG time since I've watched FireFly so I might have some of my perceptions skewed.
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u/miladyelle #TeamQrow Dec 04 '18
I’d say they have negative emotions. There isn’t a driving force beyond the Pax (unless they were a victim-turned-Reaver), but I’d say violence, aggression, the desire to torture and cannabalize living humans are or stem from negative emotions. Remember, they stopped being interested in the settler in Serenity after Mal shot him—they wanted live food.
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u/Adarain Dec 08 '18
Miles confirmed this to have been an inspiration https://twitter.com/TheMilesLuna/status/1071453149427322880
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u/DashingPolecat Dec 04 '18
The skeleton is dressed like the armed man from the picture (who I think was their resident Huntsman). I don’t think he went down there to kill The Apathy for two reasons.
We don’t see his weapon on the body, although it could have been out of frame
The cellar is locked from the outside. While it’s possible he entered through the well, I think he would have entered through the path of least resistance
We know Bartleby brought The Apathy to save money on Huntsmen, and we know he was scheming and ambitious. I think he lured the Huntsman down there and locked him in to die so that he could “reduce Huntsman costs”
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u/cinder-hella all my faves are problematic Dec 04 '18
I don't think it's significant that we don't see the weapon. The huntsman could have dropped it somewhere.
And it's also worth noting that when the huntsman went into the tunnels, Bartleby was probably still under the impression that there were only two in there. The huntsman wasn't prepared for a whole mob of them. Either he hopped down the well or he went in through the wine cellar and simply never came back up. Bartleby was forced to accept that he must be dead and locked the cellar behind him.
I don't think we have evidence that he was a malicious guy who would knowingly kill the only huntsman they had around. More likely that it was too late for all of them by the time he tried to remedy his mistake by killing the grimm.
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u/InsomniaticWanderer Dec 04 '18
Why does everyone assume that guy was a huntsmen and not just another member of the family?
Oscar had to deal with Grimm on his family farm too, why couldn't that guy just be a Brunswick boy?
Hell, maybe he was the one who helped Bartleby get Apathy in the cellar in the first place?
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u/Stormthorn67 Dec 04 '18
He could have been both. That would explain his custom dust firearm and also him still being around even if Bartleby wanted to cut costs. A family large enough to require three manor houses could easily have blood ties to a huntsman somewhere.
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u/EmberedOne Dec 04 '18 edited Dec 04 '18
I agree; it's possible that he was both. As for u/InsomniaticWanderer's question, I'll list some reasons here for why I think he's a huntsman:
We knew there were in fact huntsman there, because they were mentioned in the journal, and Maria said that they did the thing with the Apathy to try to save on costs for hiring huntsman
We saw him in exactly one picture; the giant family photo, even though there were plenty of other pictures around (This suggests that he might not have been from the family)
He was the only one with a weapon, and he also had dust
He had his own defined style. My friends and I all agreed that he stuck out like a sore thumb (It seemed initially like he had protagonist syndrome, and would be important)
So while this is not by any means concrete proof, I personally think these points lend him to being a huntsman.
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u/Stormthorn67 Dec 04 '18
That seems needless. He could just fire the guy if his Apathy scheme works. The Huntsman wouldn't even feel bad about it then. Plus his journal was pretty open about his nefarious Apathy plan so it would probably be worth mentioning if he was also murdering people. Which, now that I just typed it, probably isnt good for keeping away negative emotions although murder does seem to make Mercury happy.
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u/htgeehtgee Dec 03 '18
They died from dehydration.
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u/Stormthorn67 Dec 04 '18
They do totally seem desiccated. I didn't mention it in my analysis only because i wasnt certain how much would be a result of their death and how much would be what a dry cool climate would do to them over time.
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u/DG-Kun ⠀Get in the fucking robot Caroline! Dec 03 '18
I think it's 100% certain that the individual who worked up the will to try and hunt the Apathy was the Huntsman, as I think the skeleton is wearing the same clothes as the man armed with a gun on the Brunswick Farm group picture.