The Silver Eyes Are Shallow

INTRO:

The Silver Eyes are not a very popular part of RWBY, and honestly, have never been. Though it was clear from day 1 they’d be important somehow, I don’t think the way they’ve been executed has resonated with most folks. Back in my pinkwashing era, I pretty much just used my own headcanons to make excuses for the show, projecting them onto the show the way a lot of RWBY viewers do without ever realizing. It’s the version in my head I enjoyed, not what we got. Cuz what we got in retrospect is… bleh.

In short, the Silver Eyes are a deus ex machina. And today, we’re gonna explain what that means, why the Silver Eyes are ironically lackluster, and how they potentially could’ve been implemented better.

DEUS EX MACHINA:

A deus ex machina - meaning “god from the machine” - refers to any element introduced in a story to conveniently resolve the conflict. The term usually carries a negative connotation given these are often used whenever a writer has no idea how to organically resolve a conflict, and resorts to some random event or trope in order to wrap everything up and call it a day. And usually, it isn’t in service of any theme or character arc, but rather wherever the plot needs to go no matter the consequence. Extra points if it isn’t introduced, foreshadowed, or explained whatsoever before it’s put into use.

The reason Silver Eyes can be considered a deus ex machina is because of their ability to resolve any conflict involving the Grimm, and Cinder I guess. Their primary purpose is to dramatically finish off whatever huge Grimm is posing a threat at the current moment, be it the Wyvern in Volume 3, the Leviathan in 6, or Cinder in 3, 5, and 7. Though Ruby’s silver eyes were obnoxiously pointed out by Ozpin in the first episode, they were never actually explained until Volume 6 - 5 whole years later - and it took the mentor figure practically forcing a lecture onto the protagonist rather than the protagonist taking an active interest in… anything important.

In the show, they try to make very soft, shallow rules around the silver eyes as an excuse for why they work in certain moments, and why they may not in others, or why Ruby doesn’t use them all the time. But rather than come off as the writers trying to keep the eyes from coming off as solely for plot convenience, it instead feels hoaky and insincere. According to the show, silver eyes are a power somehow connected to the God of Light, and they’re able to either vaporize or petrify Grimm through the will to protect life. No, they don’t explain what determines whether a Grimm gets vaporized or petrified.

But in hindsight, though the powers did show up whenever Ruby wanted to protect a friend from harm, the lack of an explanation just wound up confusing viewers, with the writers’ mystery box obsession again causing problems. If we’d learned about these rules before the Fall of Beacon, and seen Ruby trying to control her emotions to harness her power, they’d probably come off less like a deus ex machina and more like a proper ability.

But even in later volumes, Ruby’s lack of training regarding her silver eyes, and especially how she conveniently uses them on Cinder right on sight in Volume 7, yet couldn’t manage that during the Volume 8 finale, really drives home the fact the writers don’t intend on using this power to explore Ruby’s character. They’re just a convenient excuse to end the plot when the volume needs to be over, and something to ignore when they wanna drag things out.

On top of that, the only times we see her unable to use her eyes are briefly against the Leviathan as bad memories flow into her mind, and fighting the pointless Megoliath in Volume 7 because… I don’t know, it got too loud? The former is the only time the whole “If you can’t focus properly, the power won’t work” thing feels genuine. During the fight with Cinder in Volume 8, Ruby doesn’t even try to use her eyes until right before she falls, with no indication she’s trying and failing beforehand.

Oh, let’s also not forget that one episode of the bad no good Fairy Tale spin-off show where the whitewashed Warrior in the Woods is important cuz she has silver eyes, but never actually uses them in battle against the Girmm, instead using standard sword slashes. Talk about an afterthought. Sidenote, $10 Volume 9 will be incomprehensible unless you’ve read both the Fairy Tale and Roman Holiday books, and you’ve seen this miniseries. Because Rooster Teeth doesn’t know what supplemental means, and doesn’t care.

SILVER SOUL (how it could work):

So let’s say we wanna lean in on the whole “Silver Eyes means you love people” thingy. In order to do that properly, firstly the eyes’ powers and significance would need to be established before they come into play. Maybe they could be explained by Ozpin or someone else to Ruby, or conveyed through a fairy tale about Silver Eyed Warriors - beyond the vague comments Qrow makes after the Wyvern got petrified in Volume 3. But by properly establishing the powers and rules, it allows viewers to understand what’s happening rather than having their immersion broken by something coming out of left field solely for shock value.

To me, the power of the Silver Eyes was always interesting given they could connect to the theme of innocence. How Ruby knows the world is dark and cruel, but still fights to make it better believing in the best in people. It feels very magical girl to me, and reminds me a bit of how Sailor Moon’s powers are literally born of love and compassion. I don’t know, it’s not like this is meant to be a show with four women leads or anything.

But let’s expand on this a bit. For this I’m gonna share an idea a friend of mine had a while back on tying the eyes into Ruby’s suppression of trauma over the course of the show… ya know, the lighthearted stuff. But long story short: Silver Eyed Warriors used to be able to vaporize the Grimm easily, but that ability was somehow lost across the generations, with the silver eyes now only able to petrify Grimm, but not forever, and not without a high physical, mental, and emotional toll on the warrior.

Essentially, Grimm vaporization can only happen when the warrior is able to reconcile with any negative emotions within themselves, and that the Grimm they’re facing might be feeding off of. Otherwise, it’s the equivalent of suppressing trauma or negative emotions, taking a heavy toll on the warrior until the pain becomes too much, overflowing and potentially killing the warrior while also setting the Grimm free.

So for Ruby, the Wyvern was only petrified because she’s suppressing the trauma from what she experienced during the Fall of Beacon, all in order to keep a brave face for her friends. As the show goes on, we’d cut back to Kevin the Magical Wyvern occasionally to show him slowly breaking free from the petrification, in turn with Ruby’s worldview slowly crumbling as the story gets darker and darker.

By the end of the series, Ruby would likely learn to deal with her shit properly, better able to deal with what she’s gone through in order to help others, and thus would unlock the old way to battle Grimm and vaporize them. Simple. Effective. Or maybe there could be some other system, but something that’s actually properly established, explained, and enforced would be preferable to what we have in canon.

OUTRO & CONCLUSION:

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I’m the Unicorn of War, and the lives of most Silver Eyed Warriors are a shit show.