The racism angle was so poorly handled in the original RWBY anyway, that I can't imagine anyone would want to copy it 1-for-1. Besides this instance of Weiss bashing the Faunus animal-people (which she does because, per her lines, Faunus terrorists murdered her relatives and associates), Rooster Teeth seemed to be genuinely terrified of portraying any actual anti-Faunus racism. The worst I can remember them going is a single Faunus rights protest that turns into a small riot (mentioned in passing only) and having Cardin pulling another student's rabbit ears, which barely counts since he's supposed to be a bully toward everyone anyway, and both of these happen very early on in the series. Hell, the headmaster of the main academy in Volume 5 is himself a lion-themed Faunus.
Really takes the bite out of the White Fang when it doesn't seem like there's any oppression to justify why the Faunus should even want or need a Black Panther equivalent. There's nothing like Jim Crow, no Remnant equivalent to sundown towns, no city-leveling riots, no segregated water fountains or public transportation, Blake can openly eat at the same table as the rest of Team RWBY even after revealing that she's a Faunus, etc. The decision to turn Adam from a determined revolutionary into an incel with a raging hateboner for Blake with no regard for his previous characterization just made something that was already awful even worse.
IMO that Studio SHAFT had Weiss openly go 'all Faunus are thieving terrorists' and actually get called on it by Yang instead of the latter simply going 'well that's not necessarily true' like an enlightened centrist already promises an at least slightly better take than the original, whereas Rooster Teeth seemed as though they couldn't decide whether to actually commit to their racism angle or just dance around it (for what, fear of offending their fellow liberals in Austin if they misstep?) and ended up crapping out something totally inconsistent.
Honestly, the show's been rolling downhill at increasing speed in just about every metric since Monty Oum died. The Faunus-human conflict turning out to be an absolute dud was just one factor in its decline.
My hope is that after Ice Queendom (and probably Volume 9, which has just been delayed into next year...) finishes airing, the new penny-pinching management at Warner Bros-Discovery will sell the IP off to SHAFT or really just about any other studio prior to shuttering Rooster Teeth so it can be rebooted, it's mind-boggling how they've made such an absolute mess out of something which started out with so much fun potential back in 2013. It'd be very difficult to do worse than they have.
The racism angle was so poorly handled in the original RWBY anyway, that I can't imagine anyone would want to copy it 1-for-1. Besides this instance of Weiss bashing the Faunus animal-people (which she does because, per her lines, Faunus terrorists murdered her relatives and associates), Rooster Teeth seemed to be genuinely terrified of portraying any actual anti-Faunus racism. The worst I can remember them going is a single Faunus rights protest that turns into a small riot (mentioned in passing only) and having Cardin pulling another student's rabbit ears, which barely counts since he's supposed to be a bully toward everyone anyway, and both of these happen very early on in the series. Hell, the headmaster of the main academy in Volume 5 is himself a lion-themed Faunus.
Really takes the bite out of the White Fang when it doesn't seem like there's any oppression to justify why the Faunus should even want or need a Black Panther equivalent. There's nothing like Jim Crow, no Remnant equivalent to sundown towns, no city-leveling riots, no segregated water fountains or public transportation, Blake can openly eat at the same table as the rest of Team RWBY even after revealing that she's a Faunus, etc. The decision to turn Adam from a determined revolutionary into an incel with a raging hateboner for Blake with no regard for his previous characterization just made something that was already awful even worse.
IMO that Studio SHAFT had Weiss openly go 'all Faunus are thieving terrorists' and actually get called on it by Yang instead of the latter simply going 'well that's not necessarily true' like an enlightened centrist already promises an at least slightly better take than the original, whereas Rooster Teeth seemed as though they couldn't decide whether to actually commit to their racism angle or just dance around it (for what, fear of offending their fellow liberals in Austin if they misstep?) and ended up crapping out something totally inconsistent.
Honestly, the show's been rolling downhill at increasing speed in just about every metric since Monty Oum died. The Faunus-human conflict turning out to be an absolute dud was just one factor in its decline.
My hope is that after Ice Queendom (and probably Volume 9, which has just been delayed into next year...) finishes airing, the new penny-pinching management at Warner Bros-Discovery will sell the IP off to SHAFT or really just about any other studio prior to shuttering Rooster Teeth so it can be rebooted, it's mind-boggling how they've made such an absolute mess out of something which started out with so much fun potential back in 2013. It'd be very difficult to do worse than they have.
Unironically fanfics do RWBY better than RT at this point, and I've read way too much RWBY fanfic at this point.