You know, given how we've reached the "Salem can win at any point" aspect of the story, I really wonder if they're just going to do more than just have Salem be incredibly incompetent. And/or stupid.
You can do "Evil guy who can win any time" shit and still have him constantly lose, but you do need good writers. Consider Ner'zhul from Warcraft 3. At any point in the story from when the Scourge started, Ner'zhul could have won. He had infiltrated all the Kingdoms, had people with insider knowledge of the most powerful Wizarding organization in Azeroth, had limitless armies, (and if we count WoW) was one of the most powerful beings in the history of Azeroth and the Burning Legion.
Still, he (via his undead army) lost pretty much every engagement (at least when his enemy was Prince Arthas) with humanity. That eventually made sense when you realized that this was his plan all along. Appear beatable enough to make the hero try his all to defeat him, but strong enough that he'd need a powerboost to do so. And wouldn't you know it, that powerboost was made by Ner'zhul, and Arthas became his slave/servant, because that boost stole his soul. Using Arthas as his proxy, he then proceeded to have him slaughter Arthas' father the King, and in one swoop destroy much of the Eastern Kingdoms, and entirety of Lordaeron and Quel'thalas. Ner'zhul didn't actually lose anything he couldn't replace, got himself a powerful ally, got rid of his possible future enemies, and could proceed to his larger plans.
I've skipped some info here and there for brevity, but the point is clear. This can work.
Alternatively, the Lich King's plan in WoW was a different flavor of this. By that point in the story the Lich King was pretty much invulnerable anywhere except on Holy Ground. He could have easily personally destroyed his enemies. But he had a similar plan to Ner'zhul's. Create a massive threat; have the most powerful heroes of Azeroth defeat his army; and when in doing so they proved their worth, kill them and resurrect them as his undead slaves, in essence replacing his army with a better one, and in a single blow robbing Azeroth of its greatest defenders. This also makes sense when you realize that he most likely had learned from the downfall of the Legion's invasion; he understood that it is better that your enemies play by your rules, than you by theirs.
Again, this can work. I could write up some good theories on why Salem is doing what she is, but...are the writers good enough to consider this, or even pull it off?
are able to be taken out by what are essentially high school dropouts
Technically that isn't true. Hazel wasn't beaten by them, but by combination of Salem and Ozpin (though, either could have beaten him alone). Emerald and Mercury intentionally lost the fight in Vytal, but they didn't lose the fight in Haven even after the Faunus army arrived, They withdrew after they realized that Cinder had lost, and that Yang (via Raven) had the relic. The Science guy lost against Ironwood, and the Faunus guy wins against Ruby, Ren, Nora, Jaune, Qrow, all by himself, and then won again in him v the lucky guy and Qrow.
Your example fits better with Atlas' "Elite" squad who did, in fact, lose to high school drop outs.
-Salem hasn't been able to succeed despite being immortal and a bunch of advantages you mentioned.
Though, it's worth mentioning three things:
- She has spent the time successfully getting rid of almost every single danger to herself
- She has no timer. She's not getting weaker, but Ozpin is. She can always win by waiting.
- Succeeding and failing could open her up to attacks from the Kingdoms (via Maidens and their Huntsmen). While she cannot die, I imagine she wouldn't want to be put in one of those perma sleep machines Atlas and Vale used to keep their maidens asleep in.
"hasn't been able to succeed" implies a try and failure, something we don't know to have happened. As far as we know, Salem's "moves" were always on the low scale as compared to what she is doing now.
And now I wonder if the road to Salem's defeat is paved with ass pulls in the rules, Team RWBY getting new powers like candy, And Cinder and Salem just turning into the likes of Madara, Obito, and Kaguya
I sure hope not. Not even Naruto fandom really likes these villain plot twists, and they are more than willing to copre-praise just about anything.
Logically, I see three ways to her defeat:
- Tried and true Fanfic method of "Ruby used Silver Eyes to make her into stone" (which strong Grimm can break free if the user is consciously activating the power as opposed to shock-induced activation)
- Freeze her/perma sleep her
- Use the relic of destruction and hope this is the one relic that actually does its job
First works best thematically, but the third could also work. By the Hand of the God, Salem was free to reign terror, by the same hand, she would die. Sorta works, I think.
So is Ozpin basically Remnant's version of DarkSydePhil?
Except DSP always comes out on top. Ozpin came out on top only twice, once when he rescued and banged Salem, and once when he won the Great War. I am literally not aware of any single other victory by him, unless we count Oscar using Ozpin's weapon to kill Hazel.
No, I'm not your daddy, I expect people in the RWBY thread to be aware of things and controversies that happened in the show. I am not going to spell our everything for you because you have a low IQ.
When I say 'two protagonists murdered a guy' it's pretty easy to assume I'm referring to the one murder committed by two protagonists that happened on screen. Sorry you need everything spelt out for you like a small child.
You went out of your way to make a comment as fucking ambiguous and disingenuous as possible. I can't fucking read your mind.
When the show starts Blake is 17, Adam isn't given an official age which I thought he was so that IS my bad but he seems older than her by a not insignificant margin which would make it statutory.
If your best argument for why what you said wasn't retarded is to rely on technicalities, then you should probably get those technicalities actually right. Statutory rape depends on the age of consent,
which in majority of US is 16. In Texas, where RT is based,
it is 17, and therefore it is a crime to have sex with 16 year old and below (bar the Romeo and Juliet law). Your argument rests on four presuppositions, one that they had sex at all, which isn't confirmed, and two that they did so while Blake was 16 or under (15 or under if we're going by the majority), three
that Adam is over 20 and therefore doesn't fit into the Romeo and Juliet law, and finally that Remnant's consent laws are anything resembling US's despite the vastly different culture. If we compare to
Europe, for example, the Age of consent there is majority 14-15.
You and I both know that we are thinking of something else when we use the term "sexual abuse", but hey, why not be disingenuous, huh?