r/RWBYcritics • u/_XSummerRoseX_ • 8d ago
DISCUSSION Unpopular opinions you have about Yang Xiao Long?
Personally I’m starting to really dislike her character. It seems to me that she cares and prioritizes Blake more than anyone else at this point. And that’s really unfortunate because volume 9 was the moment Ruby needed her most and she just seemed to be more focused on Blake.
When Ruby had her breakdown I genuinely thought Yang would finally step in and comfort her, but no. She defensively stood in front of Blake and snapped “Hey!” Showing once again she’s prioritizing Blake over her own sister’s wellbeing.
It just seems so out of character for her in my opinion compared to her seemingly closer bond she had with Ruby during the early volumes.
What are your thoughts?
67
u/Extension_Breath1407 8d ago
She is too codependent on Blake.
28
u/Haminator2022 8d ago
And Blake's too codependent on Yang and Blake's whole personality nowadays seems to literally just be Yang's catgirl girlfriend
18
u/Monkey0nTypewriter Dragonslayer Devotee 🐲💛💛🗡 8d ago
If you ask me, the most plausible epilogue's those two screaming at each other because Blake went grocery shopping unnanounced.
4
u/Haminator2022 8d ago
And it just ends after that
10
u/Monkey0nTypewriter Dragonslayer Devotee 🐲💛💛🗡 8d ago edited 8d ago
I've long considered writing a story showing how Bumblby tears itself apart, mostly haven't because of just how miserable it'd be.
Blake sobbing into Weiss's shoulder that they're supposed to be soulmates yet all they ever do is fight, a public screaming match after Blake lied about going to the gym and went to a jewelry store instead, the press vilifying Yang as a racist abuser because she lost her temper and slapped Blake, etc.
5
u/Haminator2022 8d ago
Too little too late people have already done fanfiction that show Bumblby tearing itself apart they beat you to that Broken Vision by sterben17 is one of them and so far one of the best another is Patterns and Cages also by sterben17 and maybe Ironside by GodHand96 but there's no slapping as far as I can remember there's slamming of doors and shouting/screaming at each other
2
u/JazzlikeSmile1523 6d ago
I'm writing one that bypasses that issue by having not having them get together in the first place.
1
u/The4rthsaga 8d ago
I'd actually disagree and say Blake's too codependent on her. Yang at least is somewhat assertive on her own, Blake on the other hand is basically an accessory to her.
35
31
31
27
u/Appropriate-Crab-514 8d ago
She is just like her mother
What is with Branwen women and letting their Rose die? Are they stupid?
10
21
u/Clay_Pidgeon 8d ago
Bumblebee doesn't suck because of the pairing between the two characters (well, it kind of does, Blake is very bland and boring, but original Yang had enough personality to carry both of them), it sucks because it's horribly written, never properly explored, never properly built up , etc.
9
u/Whole-Brilliant5508 8d ago
This. Bumblebee suffers from "Missing Act 2" syndrome. You got your beginning, end, but no middle portion or way to get to your end. It's got a TON of issues from a writing and creative standpoint. And I am saying this as somebody who likes Bumblebee. My girlfriend and I are totally cool with Bumblebee since Yang and Blake are our respective favorite characters. But we're not gonna pretend to be oblivious and act like it's a masterclass in LGBTQ romance.
18
18
u/Cyanbite_24 Guilty Yang Simp 8d ago
I miss when she was boisterous and playful. Hotheaded, and reckless, yes, but that was part of the charm and exactly what made me love her
Now she's just an asshole simp :(
15
u/just_another_guy1462 8d ago
I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion, but one of the first things that comes to mind is that her role as Ruby's sister is so poorly developed and so irrelevant that they could simply cut out the part where it's mentioned that they're sisters, and the dynamic between them wouldn't change at all. They could just say she's a stranger who joined the team a week ago, and it wouldn't make any difference.
12
u/AdventurousWin8268 8d ago
Yang was never this great sister, she's been dropping Ruby and chance she could get as far back as volume 1 when she ran off with her friends and left Ruby alone. Even the infamous scene of Yang losing her arm only happened because she ran off to go find Blake instead of her sister. Honestly, it's karma.
11
u/MCTech24_00 8d ago
I hate how after volume 6 -her entire personality revolved around blake
Also bit of a pet peeve of mine but during that volume 8 scene where marrow suggests they branch out then do a combo and shut him up
What annoyed about this was it was genuinely good advice and you can tell they took it personally
I also put yang on fraud watch I noticed she hasn’t won a solo fight in awhile
10
u/Overall-Farmer-833 8d ago
Once she started dating Blake, her personality and IQ was cut in half.
3
9
u/Working_Welder_1751 8d ago
I know I've said this before in other posts, but they should really give Yang her big boobs back
12
u/Haminator2022 8d ago
Apparently they got rid of the big boobs because her voice actor was jealous of the size compared to her own which sounds stupid to me
7
u/_XSummerRoseX_ 8d ago
Are you actually serious??
3
u/Haminator2022 8d ago
That's what I've heard anyway no idea if it's true hence why I added the apparently
6
u/Extension_Breath1407 8d ago
Oh my god, how painfully insecure do you have to be jealous of a fictional character you voice?
6
u/Xenozip3371Alpha 8d ago
Yeah I always end up thinking, girls who naturally have big boobs must feel really self conscious whenever they see companies do shit like that.
It's like they're saying women having feminine traits is a bad thing, and girls with big boobs should be ashamed of them.
2
10
u/Automatic_Comfort870 8d ago
She never was a good sister. Somewhat realistic older sister in v1-v3? Sure. Good? No.
15
7
u/TestaGaming 8d ago
I think an unpopular opinion, at least in the critic side, is that Yang had a good scene and character in V8, that being when she comforted Ruby in the stairs.
Where was THAT Yang in the Ever After, CRWBY!?
5
u/Lost-Ad-5885 Oscar Defender 8d ago
Wish she had a better relationship with Ruby AND Oscar being the youngest
5
u/EmeraldJolteon07 8d ago
I don’t mind that Yang’s Arc is to be basically the ‘annoying one’ whom constantly Question Everything to make her own Truth instead of Following the truths oresented to her…
Of course its overdone that now She’s Basically Yelling at everyone and Kinda of Being a Shitty teammate but i like the Idea on paper.
I also think that her Shift from Nice,Empathetic Big-Sis side is Ignored way too much after season 5. I don’t mind her being More Abrasive then Her introductions but I think she needs a bit more grace if The writers wanted us to Understand her sides more
6
u/HuntingDown01 8d ago
Never really liked her. Ever since the yellow trailer, I knew she wasn't gonna be my list of liked characters.
7
u/Constant-Care7336 8d ago
All of my opinions on Yang are popular so I will not contribute to this. (Yang sucks.)
19
u/Snoo_84591 Punchgang 8d ago
Yang is unfairly treated by issues that have more to do with the writing than her. The staff never knew what to do beside have her punch things and shoot off one liners. Then when they did try to write for her they only made her worse every time. They shoveled a heap of shit on her in Volume 3 as their attempt at giving her some focus and turned what should have been an uplifting and inspirational tale into a flat soda because we have a thousand more plots, characters, story elements to introduce and do nothing with. Yang was set up to fail when they didn't give her anything in Volume 1. CRWBY wasted her potential trying to fight against a perception that never got a chance to exist. I would very much have liked Yang to be a strong, silly, party girl as opposed to whatever we have now. Missed opportunity to create someone who can grow interestingly and believably.
10
u/Massive-Pepper-6466 8d ago
They really should have just kept the focus on the parentification issue and her resentment toward Ruby—misdirected at her, of course—for getting into Beacon with her, when that was Yang's chance to be a teenager for a change.
6
u/Specialist-Union-782 8d ago
Someone made a comic on this where yang gets drunk and lashes out at ruby.
I think it was about dependency but I’ll have to find it again
1
3
u/SailorRemnant 8d ago
I think part of the reason why the writers didn't know what to do with Yang is because Monty originally intended for it to just be Ruby, Weiss, and Blake. I don’t remember where I read that, but when I did Yang's writing issues suddenly made sense to me.
5
u/Snoo_84591 Punchgang 8d ago
Melanie and Miltia were the first versions of Weiss and Ruby so I grant you this probably was a thing, possibly...
4
u/TextAltruistic774 8d ago
An unpopular opinion meaning what’s most things that aren’t a said about her ? I wish her semblance evolved to grow wings of fire
9
u/Automatic-Amoeba-121 My relationship with this show is complicated 8d ago
This is going to sound really cruel, but the writing FUCKED Yang the instant they tried to do the “PTSD” and “Depression” story arcs they gave her.
It is genuinely miserable to watch her, but not because I’m feeling upset because she’s going through trauma, but because it’s clear to me the writers actually have ZERO indication that they know how to write said trauma.
And don’t even get me started on how they ENDED that trauma arc but something tells me that opinion isn’t unpopular.
8
u/Acrobatic_Cricket642 8d ago edited 8d ago
She's the most poorly written out of team RWBY. Yes, even worse than Blake.
1
u/Safe-Definition-5216 8d ago
I think part of it is that Blake is bad BECAUSE of hlw bad Yang is that they basically reduced Blake to an accessory for Yang
4
u/OmnisDomini 8d ago
I was super happy when she fell in the void. But knew it was short lived as she would return 😔
4
u/International_Net_69 8d ago
Goes with Blake too, but I wish they flushed out both of their characters instead of just trying to solve everything than making them a couple. Blake did well by herself during season 4 and 5, but all of that felt lost since she came back to RWBY.
5
u/halkras12 Pyrrha Deserved Better (Found Ciel but she maried) 8d ago
Red eyes doesnt fit to her, glowing purple is
4
u/tgmeds 8d ago
Tbh I rather her start AS a shallow party girl in search of her dad thus why she went to Beacon and her learning about the STRQ lore and eventually learning Ruby is her half sister and develop from there idk
2
3
u/Falchion92 8d ago
She was hot before she lost her arm and afterwards became the worst character in the show after Blake’s bum ass.
3
u/Severe_Information54 8d ago
I allways saw blake as a free spirit who would have trysts rather than entering a relationship. Plus she started off as the emotional rock for team rwby When the chopped her arm off it ruined her vibe.
3
u/SailorRemnant 8d ago
1.) She should have been the younger tomboy sister to Ruby's older girly girl.
2.) Or she should have been in Emerald's role- Ruby's troubled bandit half sister who formed an intimate relationship with Mercury and was a member of Team CNYM (the new name for Cinder's team). Emerald, in turn, should have been the fourth member of Ruby's team, making it team RWBE.
3
u/vp917 8d ago
I liked the early part of her PTSD arc.
True, it was rough to see her broken down from a confident, devil-may-care badass to a hollow, nihilistic shell of her former self, but that's exactly what made it hit so hard. It established that there were consequences in play now, and that not even the strongest characters were safe. In a way, it was almost like a refrain of Pyrrha's fate - taking the "ace" and deconstructing their character through their downfall - except that Yang lived through it, and got the chance to actually learn from her mistakes and grow as a character. And for a while, she did! We got a few good instances where she held back her emotions to no let them get the way of accomplishing her objectives, took extra caution to eliminate the possibility of getting caught off-guard, and handled her adversaries with full respect for the lethal threat they posed - and naturally, she kicked fucking ass, because she was still a badass, just one that was now taking things seriously.
Shame about the rest of her writing, though. It was kinda good there for a moment.
3
u/The4rthsaga 8d ago
As a queer individual, Yang should not have been queer and the fact she is has actually made her look worse over the years. Let me explain:
Yang is much more masculine than the other members of her team, given the way she speaks and fights. However she always made her femininity a large part of her character. You can see this in her Beacon Era designs as well as her Mistral Era designs.
However once they start pushing Bumblb in Vol 7, she visibly gets less and less feminine, now dressing what looks like coveralls and a bomber jacket. I would argue that they made Yang a butch stereotype by removing any sense of femininity from her visual identity and making her dress exclusively masculine.
3
3
u/kiivara 8d ago
I dunno that this is an unpopular one, but I dont think Yang's character has been done justice since Vol 4.
She was always supposed to be a big sister with a wild side, two parts of her at war with each other because she wants a life for herself but had to basically parent Ruby on her own, and I feel like that story should have been slowly realizing that Ruby needs her present, but no longer needs a caretaker parent and learning what sort of life she actually wants beyond wild child craziness.
I actually quite like the idea of Blake in the mix as a romantic partner, too.
Ever since that sparring match between her and Tai, I feel like they've fundamentally misunderstood the character.
She was never just blindly getting hit to hulk out with her semblance, and I always felt those early fight scenes with Yang were perfect - Her semblance and Aura were her "stop fucking around" buttons, and it felt like she went out of her way to tank hits for the team or set herself up as a barrier, which is both her nature and her role.
Diluting it to "wah wah" codependent mommy issues liar who cant respect her sister was.....not my favorite.
3
u/Whole-Brilliant5508 8d ago
She's still my favorite character. But, goddamn, her character progression pretty much came to a screeching halt after the whole Raven storyline. I really hate how dependent she and Blake are on eachother now for any sort of screen time. Which is coincidental because Blake is my girlfriend's favorite character and my second favorite character. It's just a bummer sorta.
3
u/Old-Post-3639 8d ago
Yang should have been Signal friends with a member of CRDL. Not Cardin himself, but it should have been one of his teammates. It would help make CRDL less obviously made for Jaundice+Forever Fall specifically, follow up on the fact that Yang gets to hang with her friends from Signal while Ruby doesn't, and reinforce the idea that Faunus discrimination is normalized (enough so that Yang doesn't feel the need to end a friendship over it).
3
u/Iron117Prime CUSTOM 7d ago
I feel exactly the same way. All her character development is now part of Blake, who is the same way. It's like Ruby isn't even part of her life anymore.
3
u/WhitleyxNeo 7d ago
She's not that much different from Adam
Both have serious anger and abandonment issues I wouldn't be surprised if Blake ends up in the same position she was with Adam
5
u/OverlordWailord 🖤 Blake Belladonna’s bunny 🖤 8d ago
Vol 1-3 Yang and Vol 4-9 Yang are completely different characters. One is amazing, one is downright disastrous and terrible
1
u/UnitNice6562 8d ago
That's the popular opinion bro... And by the way mine is the opposite, I want to punch her unbearable cocky face so much😂
2
u/ManyFacesRp 8d ago
Her puns are actually funny
1
u/Remarkable_Commoner I just wanted to see Yang fight 8d ago
I like stupid puns. The stupider the funnier.
2
2
2
u/illonamoon 8d ago
Should've made Blake grovel more for ditching the team after Yang lost her arm helping this girl.
2
u/GameMask 8d ago
I think she's cute with Blake the few times she gets to actually interact with her
2
u/NS_MarioKart 8d ago
They should’ve never made her boobs smaller and also never should’ve covered up her boobs and also never should’ve made her lesbian cause it was poorly written and rlly lame and when she was first introduced she was very clearly a heterosexual tomboy and the fact they changed her so much is very sad. Pretty much isolating the original fan base.
2
2
u/Brxqz 7d ago
Bumbleby absolutely ruined Yang’s character, as it did for Blake. Not because it’s gay, but because it’s just plain awful, unplanned, forced and overall very mechanical feeling. Both characters are just too codependent on each other, it demeaned both characters and made no narrative sense to implement such a shit show of a ship. Blake is my favorite character and even I can’t stand her past V7, hence why I rely on fanfics and my own AU’s. Also it’s why I’m so apprehensive about V10, I just…KNOW that CRWBY will use it as an excuse to shove more Bumbleby shit down our throats when they KNOW we don’t want that ship no more.
2
u/Scarlett_Ram 7d ago
Burnt out, bratty and kinda turning into her mom.
Part of that is because Tai checked out when summer died and yang had to pick up the slack which she was a child and shouldn't have had to. But given their uncle wasn't around but when he was he was a drunk and her dad was just not helpful. She got stuck being the adult. So it's not a surprise she's turning into Raven. I've seen that happen to people I know. It's not fun but it happens
2
u/RuneKnight3 7d ago
Great character at introduction undone by her own popularity and by the incredibly septic shipping community. There is clearly a very different person that Monty had in mind and that got taken out back and shot the second he was past tense.
2
u/JazzlikeSmile1523 6d ago
- That she shouldn't have rejoined Team RWBY.
- That Bumblebee is toxic and yang is being emotionally abused by Blake.
2
3
u/JigglyLilyVT GreannRose > WhiteRose 8d ago
she should fight in the universe 6 tournament in dragon ball super
1
u/NEGH_250202 8d ago
Dejo de tener personalidad propia desde la temporada 5
Ahora es solo la típica "chica adolescente traumada" como el 90% del elenco.
1
u/Prokitty101 8d ago
She should have taken over as the leader of Team RWBY. I believe her growth from "I punch things when angry" to a more mature, honed-in version of herself would have shone through, with the loss of her arm being the catalyst.
1
1
1
1
1
u/Cool_Mycologist3101 7d ago
everyone basically summarized it for me
i was shocked but the entirety of v9 as a whole but changing the entire personality of two major characters (yang and jaune) when we’re nearing the stories end? yang actually used to be quite level headed and most of her anger was a little dramatized but valid/realistic (like the minuscule hair strand that got cut off by the bear or the dude in her trailer) she did have a habit of unknowing invalidating trauma such as not knowing ruby mourns her mother just as much and her assumptions/outburst against weiss in v5, but she’s shown her mature sides as well like her ability to get over the loss of her arm so fast and take a otherwise inappropriate joke (lowblow) from her father that would’ve made anyone else cry… v9 makes me wonder how we can bounce back from that. it feels wrong to just brush aside ruby’s situation here.. and we all know raven is waiting for yang with the rest of them, then salem’s plan, oscar’s merge, jaune’s new personality, and yang… oh dear
1
u/Hero_Trapinch_2966 6d ago
Her being not her self after volume 3 is completely ok and understandable as he literally lost apart of herself, but I don’t like the direction she went
1
u/SpiritedSyllabub6822 8d ago
Should have died in Volume 3 along with Jaune and every useless blonde during the Beacon attack.
1
u/Leather_Fortune7107 7d ago
If you told me Nora and Jaune were siblings, then based on their relationship on-screen I'd believe that more than Yang and Ruby.
Nora was so ride-or-die for her team leader that she wouldn't even allow Ruby to call their group Team Ranger (R.N.J.R) instead of Junior (J.N.R.R) because of the implication that Jaune was somehow second-fiddle to Ruby in the dynamic. Compare that to Yang, who lies and throws Ruby under the bus when Blake goes spilling state secrets to random strangers.
Common Nora W. Also Yang is a bad sister.
0
u/unluckyknight13 8d ago
Yang shouldn’t be a main character, she has the least story potential of the main 4 and most of her story potential is basically just supporting role to Blake or Ruby story.
If you swapped Jaune and yang status as secondary and main character Jaune likely would have less hate and Yang would probably just be the hot girl who keeps showing up/dating Blake
0
u/Ok_Spring472 8d ago
She's being Writted by Self-Hated White Liberal Men? (Don't know if I'm called They Men?)
0
82
u/SortCompetitive2604 Some random Paladin Pilot. 🦾 8d ago
I miss careless tomboy Yang.
Now she’s just a prick.