Azula vs Cinder Fall (Avatar the Last Airbender vs RWBY)






(Br3ndan5)



(VampyreNVRmore)


Azula, Avatar’s psychotic princess of the Fire Nation.

Cinder Fall, the Fall Maiden from RWBY.

The lure of power can claim many lives, especially those caught in the path of those who seek it. Few embody this more than these two ambitious powerhouses, each among the most dangerous people in their worlds. Nothing can come between them and their perfection, and those who try will burn.

But when these fiery maidens meet in battle, who will rise from the ashes, and whose ambitions will be reduced to cinders? Let’s find out as we decide who will win a DEATH BATTLE!


Before we begin

For this blog, we’ll be using information found in any canon materials for both series. This means Azula will be getting the original Avatar TV series, comics, and guidebooks, while Cinder will factor in her appearances in RWBY, its manga adaptations, and guidebooks.


Background

Azula

Born into the royal family of the Fire Nation, Azula seemed destined for success from the moment she was born. Even at a young age she displayed a set of sharp wits and showed a progeny with Firebending, both of which earned the favor of her father, Prince Ozai. However, this favoritism was not reciprocated by her mother, Ursa, who preferred Azula’s brother Zuko and considered Azula a monster. This resentment, combined with Ozai’s influence, molded Azula throughout the years into a cruel, manipulative girl, which would only intensify when he ascended to the throne after his wife’s supposed death.

Two years later, Zuko would be exiled from the Fire Nation after unintentionally disgracing his father, leaving Azula as Ozai’s only “worthy” heir. While her brother was sent out on a futile quest to locate the long dead Avatar, Azula continued to hone her skills in bending and strategy. And she’d later get the chance to use these skills when her father assigned her to capture Zuko and her uncle Iroh, declaring them traitors to the Fire Nation.

After recruiting her friends Ty Lee and Mai to join her, Azula set out to capture her brother and uncle as well as the current Avatar, Aang. Through the use of disguises and manipulating its leaders, Azula managed to track down Zuko and Aang, coercing the former into rejoining the Fire Nation and killing the latter through the use of lightning bending.

Though her accomplishments grew and the Fire Nation’s victory seemed close at hand, as time went on Azula’s mind slowly began to fall apart. After her friends betrayed her trust to save Team Avatar from dying, Azula was crowned the new Fire Lord by Ozai, which would only make things worse for her. Furious at her friends’ betrayal and overwhelmed by the pressure of her new title, Azula’s mental state grew increasingly fragile, to the point of suffering intense paranoia, emotional instability, and vivid hallucinations.

With her mind becoming increasingly unraveled, Azula challenged Zuko to a duel to determine the true heir to the throne. Thanks to a combination of his uncle’s teachings and her own fractured mental state, Azula was beaten and left in chains as she completely snapped, suffering an extreme mental breakdown.

Hoping to heal his sister’s broken psyche, Zuko had Azula committed to an asylum, but he’d eventually visit her after discovering their mother was still alive. Using her knowledge of Ursa’s secret letters in Ozai’s chambers, Azula convinced Zuko to free her and let her accompany him on their search. While the journey wasn’t without its friction between her and Team Avatar, Azula eventually tracked down Ursa, now an amnesiac going by the name “Noriko.” Despite initially wanting to kill her mother for abandoning her, Ursa’s subsequent apology and Zuko comforting her caused Azula to change her goals.

With the help of several inmates she’d befriended in the asylum, Azula formed the Fire Warriors, a group dedicated to undermining Zuko’s rule from the shadows. Through their combined efforts, Azula would begin working toward her new goal: to mold Zuko into a true Fire Lord that would rule his nation through fear. But whether she decides to usurp her brother once more or continue manipulating him from the shadows, one thing is certain: Azula’s lust for power will never be quenched, and anyone who opposes her will be burned to ashes.

Cinder





Before becoming Salem’s loyal Fall Maiden, Cinder was once an orphan in Mistral. She was often mistreated and overworked by her caretakers, and the other children at the orphanage would bully her. Starved and alone, Cinder would spend her days scrubbing the floors while the other children got to play outside and have fun. One day, Cinder’s life at the orphanage would soon come to an end when a woman came by to the orphanage and adopted Cinder. However, the woman didn’t adopt Cinder because she wanted another daughter but because she wanted a new worker for her hotel The Glass Unicorn. As a result, the woman had Cinder refer to her only by “Madame” and immediately put her newly adopted employee to work at The Glass Unicorn.

Day by day, Cinder is forced to work numerous chores throughout the hotel with very little time to eat or rest. The Madame’s biological daughters would make it their mission to make Cinder’s life as miserable as possible by adding more to her workload such as leaving muddy footprints on the floor for Cinder to rescrub. In addition to the heavy workload, Cinder was forced to wear a shock collar as part of her uniform. Should Cinder step out of line or even make the smallest of mistakes, the Madame would use the collar to electrocute Cinder as punishment. For Cinder, her life didn’t change. She was merely moved to a new scene.

One day, Cinder spotted a Huntsman giving a display of one of his weapons. It was also the same day where she discovered her semblance. Tired of the constant abuse from the Madame and her stepsisters, Cinder stole the Huntsman’s swords. However, the Huntsman, identified as Rhodes, tracked down Cinder in her hiding room. Aware of the mistreatment Cinder has been receiving, Rhodes convinced her not to kill her abusers and offered to train her to be a Huntress instead. Cinder accepted and would be trained by Rhodes whenever he visited The Glass Unicorn.

After a few years, Rhodes made a horrifying discovery when he visited the hotel. Cinder had murdered the Madame and her stepsisters after they found the weapons he had given her. Realizing that his pupil was too far gone, Rhodes tried to bring her in. However, Cinder fought back, feeling betrayed by the one person who helped her. A short fight ensued between the two with Cinder emerging victorious. Now free from the shackles of her abusive family, Cinder decided to make her own destiny.

At some point, Cinder met Salem and became her new disciple. Salem trained Cinder as her new student, promising power to the young woman in exchange for her loyalty. As part of Salem’s plan to destroy the academies and claim the four relics guarded by them, Cinder recruited Emerald and Mercury as her lackeys, Roman and Neopolitan to steal Dust, and Adam Taurus and the Vale branch of the White Fang as her army. With her planning, Cinder brought down Beacon Academy and claimed the power of the Fall Maiden. However, it didn’t come without cost. After killing Pyrrha Nikos, Cinder lost her left eye and arm from the emergence of Ruby Rose’s silver eyes.

After months of recovery, Cinder regained her strength and tried to bring down Haven Academy under Salem’s orders to claim the Relic of Knowledge. Consumed by her revenge on Ruby Rose, Cinder made a deal with Raven Branwen with the intent to betray her and steal the Spring Maiden’s power. Unfortunately for Cinder, her plan backfired, and she was defeated by Raven. As punishment for failing to destroy Haven and take its relic, Cinder was left on her own. After a violent reunion with Neopolitan, Cinder convinced Neo to work together and kill Ruby Rose instead. With a new partnership formed, the two women made their way to Atlas.

At Atlas, Cinder and Neo made plans to steal the Relic of Knowledge and the Winter Maiden’s power. While Neo was successful in stealing the relic from Team JNPR, Cinder failed in taking the Winter Maiden’s power, which had gotten transferred to Penny Polendina. Still, with the Relic of Knowledge in their possession, Cinder returned to Salem with Neo in tow. Despite Salem’s orders to remain on standby in Monstra, Cinder disobeyed her master and tried to kill Penny for the Winter Maiden’s powers with Emerald and Neo helping her. Despite causing significant damage to the Amity Arena satellite, Cinder was defeated by Penny and was brought back to Salem by Emerald.

After receiving another punishment from Salem, Cinder was ordered by her master to rescue Watts. While Cinder was able to break her colleague out of prison, the two were stranded in Atlas after Salem’s base of operations was destroyed with Salem herself needing time to regenerate. During this time, Cinder was berated by Watts for her bullheadedness and lack of forethought which he explained were the reasons for her plans for revenge and power failing, causing the Fall Maiden to emotionally break down. In addition, Neopolitan had taken the Relic of Knowledge and used it to blackmail Cinder into helping her kill Ruby Rose.

Accepting Neo’s terms and realizing the errors of her previous mindset, Cinder devised a new plan with her colleagues to steal the Relic of Creation and ruin the heroes’ plan to save the people of Atlas and Mantle. During the battle, Cinder betrayed Neo and defeated Team RWBY, sending them to a bottomless void. While Cinder still failed to steal the Winter Maiden’s power, she succeeded in stealing the Relic of Creation and used it to kill Watts. Upon Salem’s return, Cinder presented the relics to her master while also lying about the Relic of Knowledge's third question and the details of the battle.

Despite the costs it took to retrieve the Relics, Salem praised Cinder for her efforts, and the two left the City of Atlas to its fall. With two Relics now in her possession, Salem is now closer to her goal. As for Cinder, she has shown that she’ll do anything in her pursuit for power. Ally or enemy, no one is safe from Cinder Fall in her path to claim what’s rightfully hers. If anyone dares try to oppose her, it would be them who’ll fall and burn. And that’s checkmate.


Experience, Intelligence, and Skill

Azula




Being one of the royal members of the Fire Nation, Azula has been trained in firebending from a young age to the point of near perfection. By the time she was nine, her father had already acknowledged her as a prodigy, something Zuko would also admit years later. This status is further reflected by her ability to manipulate blue flames, something no other Firebender has managed before or after.

Despite her young age, Azula is well-versed in military history and has displayed impressive skill when it comes to manipulating others. She infiltrated the Earth Kingdom by disguising herself and tricked othersinto believing they’re holding advantages over her, which she used to seize control of the Dai Li and the city of Ba Sing Se. She’s also successfullymanipulatedTeam Avatar by baiting them into wasting time against her, and has completely fooled Toph’s ability to detect lies.

Cinder




Cinder started her Huntsman training with Rhodes when she was 10 years old and would continue training with him for the next couple of years. While the training wasn’t consistent due to Rhodes only training her whenever he visited the Glass Unicorn during his travels, Cinder has shown exceptional progress with her training. A few years before she reached the age to be eligible for a Huntsman Academy, Cinder killed her abusive stepmother by snapping her neck with her bare hands. Despite her sporadic training from Rhodes, Cinder was able to kill him in one-on-one combat. It’s an impressive accomplishment since Rhodes was an experienced Huntsman while Cinder was still a young teenager at the time. It’s presumed that Cinder received further training from Salem. While it’s not known what kind of training Salem provided, Cinder reached a level where she can fight on par with expert Huntsman such as Qrow Branwen and Glynda Goodwitch.

Along with the training, Cinder became a part of Salem’s inner circle. As a result, Cinder played a vital role in Salem’s plans to destroy the Huntsmen Academies and all four Relics. First, Cinder planned a strategy to capture the Fall Maiden Amber and steal her powers. Using Emerald’s semblance, Cinder lured Amber into a trap and stole half of her powers. She would’ve stolen the rest of it if it had not been for Qrow’s interference. Even then, despite Amber being a full Fall Maiden, Cinder was able to take advantage of Amber’s inexperience and defeat her.

On her own, Cinder has orchestrate the fall of Beacon Academy by infiltrating the school with Mercury, Emerald, and Neo as exchange students from Haven Academy.


Equipment

Azula

Dagger



Azula keeps a concealed dagger hidden under her sleeve. It’s unknown how skilled she is with it since she was disarmed before she could use it.

Hairpin


Yes, really. Azula used her hairpin as makeshift support to keep herself from falling off a cliff (0:36). Its tip is sharp enough to become embedded in stone.

Cinder

Dust



An all purpose energy source found in the world of Remnant, Dust can be found in the form of crystals or powder, and is mainly used as a means of powering or fueling technology and weapons. In combat, this can be done through the Dust interacting with a user’s Aura, allowing them to infuse their weapon with whatever element the Dust carries.

Dust comes in four varieties: water, electricity, wind, and fire. By combining them, a user can create new, powerful types such as Steam (fire and water), Combustion (fire and wind), Ice (water and wind), or the extremely rare Hard-Light (made by combining all four). The World of RWBY: The Official Companion also reveals the existence of other Dusts, including Electricity, Plant, Rock, and Gravity.

Cinder has used Fire Dust to create a fireball and change clothes.


Rhodes’ Dual Swords



Dual swords that originally belonged to her mentor Rhodes. Cinder used these to kill her stepsisters and Rhodes himself. It’s unknown what happened to them afterward, but considering we never see them again, it’s likely Cinder abandoned them.

Magic Weapons



After obtaining her Maiden powers, Cinder replaced Midnight with her new ability to use magic to create weapons out of glass. She can use this to create dualscimitars that explode, daggers, 12 foot longswords, spears (0:10), legions of swordsshe can telekinetically throw, explosive black shards, and a bow with exploding arrows.

Shadow Arm



After losing her left arm during the Fall of Beacon, Salem had it replaced with a Shadow Hand, a Grimm limb equipped with sharp claws. The arm is able to stretch great distances to grab others, throw them, or make their attacks miss, and it can drain the Seasonal Maidens of their powers. It can also regenerate from being severed, though this causes her intense pain.

Abilities

Azula

Firebending



By focusing her body’s chi, Azula can manipulate the fire within her to perform the art of firebending. She can manipulate her fire in any way she desires, and her control is such that she can do so with only two fingers, unlike the fists or open palms needed by other firebenders. Unlike other Firebenders in the series, Azula manipulates blue flames, which are hotter and more intense.

Firebending Techniques

Fireball



The most basic Firebending technique where the user launches a ball of fire. While most Firebenders use their full hands, Azula can do this with just two fingers. She can use this to fire one ball or release multiple rapid blasts.


Fireblocking



A defensive technique that allows Firebenders to disperse or extinguish opposing flames.

Fire Streams



Azula can release streams of fire by kicking. This ability works akin to a flamethrower, and it’s been used by Fire Nation soldiers to destroy entire towns.

Fire Pinwheel



Azula spins through the air, turning her into a whirling disk of flames.

Fire Shield



Azula can conjure a barrier of fire capable of blocking a four-way bending attack from Team Avatar. And Sokka’s Boomerang.

Fire Whips



A mid to long-range method of utilizing Firebending to attack from afar. Azula’s used this to stop Aang from escaping her.

Jet Propulsion



Azula can conjure bursts of flame from her feet. She can use this to boost herself in midair (0:15) or actively flythrough the air. She can even stop it prematurely and use the fire jets as an attack.

Wall of Flames



By stomping on the ground, Azula can conjure a massive wall of flame capable of dispersing an equally large stream of water.

Fire Breathing



Lets Azula unleash intense streams of fire from her mouth.

Fire Daggers



Azula can focus her flames into the shape of daggers, letting her arm herself if she wants to fight up close.

Lightningbending



An advanced sub skill of firebending that can only be learned by the inner circles of the Fire Nation’s upper class. By focusing, Azula can fire bolts of lightning from her fingertips with precise control. She can use this to create blinding flashes, a wide AOE wave of bolts, or focus the lightning into a condensed ball. Later on, she’d learn how to redirect lightning, which she used during her rematch with Zuko.

Cinder

Aura



A physical manifestation of one’s soul that possesses a wide range of uses. It is mostly used for defensive purposes and will protect the user as long as it remains up. However, they aren’t protected from sensations like pain or heat.

Aura also possesses some offensive uses, such as providing users with a boost of physical strength and the ability to generate shockwaves. It can even be used on weapons to imbue them with energy and increase their range. But its best usage is the activation of the user’s unique ability called a Semblance.

In terms of other benefits, Aura grants its user a healing factor that lets them regenerate minor wounds like cuts (6:31).

Despite its versatility, Aura is not an infinite resource. Using Aura for prolonged periods will cause it to decay, leaving a user weakened or even incapacitated depending on the severity. And should it be fully depleted, the Aura will “break,” leaving the user completely vulnerable to harm and unable to use their Semblance.

Scorching Caress



Cinder’s Semblance, which lets her produce intense heat from anywhere in her body to superheat surrounding objects. She’s used this to transform dirtand sandinto makeshift weaponry, change her clothes, melt and vaporize weapons, burn others, and disintegrate a person to ash. But its strongest usage is the ability to create explosive sigils, which Cinder can summon at rapid speeds or intentionallydelay (0:08) to catch opponents off guard.

Maiden Powers



After killing the original Fall Maiden, Cinder gained her abilities, allowing her to freely conjure and manipulate fire. She can use this to create glass-based weapons without the need of her Semblance, channel fire through them, create fiery beams, fly by shooting bursts of flame from her hands and feet, and even conjure a tornado of fire.

Despite what the above would imply, Cinder isn’t limited to controlling fire. She can also manipulate other elements, like freezing Raven with ice (12:55), forming a molten blade from earth (10:38), or using wind to create massive blasts and vortexes to levitate (0:12).


Feats

Azula

Overall

  • Conquered Omaha and renamed it to New Ozai
  • Infiltrated the kingdom of Ba Sing Se and took it over
  • Killed Aang (at least temporarily)
  • Was named the new Fire Lord by Ozai
  • Challenged Zuko to an Agni Kai to determine who would truly be worthy of the throne
  • Escaped the asylum she was placed in and burned Ursa’s letters
  • Saved Team Avatar from the wolf spirit and its swarm of moth wasps
  • Became leader of the Fire Warriors and began undermining Zuko’s rule as Fire Lord


Strength




Durability



  • Killed her abusive family and Rhodes
  • Defeated Amber, the previous Fall Maiden
  • Manipulated the Vytal Festival Tournament and the fall of Beacon
  • Killed Pyrrha Nikos
  • Convinced Neo to work with her
  • Nearly killed Penny after she became the Winter Maiden

Strength




Speed





Scaling

Azula

Team Avatar




Azula has held her own against the members of Team Avatar on several occasions, and during Smoke & Shadow, she explicitly matched and overpowered Zuko, having gotten “better and stronger” since Book 3.


Miscellaneous

Anything listed here can be summed up as “Azula is superior to the characters who have performed these feats.”


Cinder

Team RWBY




Cinder has regularly battled the members of Team RWBY.


Seasonal Maidens




Aside from being one herself, Cinder has battled them before and shown that she’s comparable in power.

Miscellaneous

Anything listed here can be summed up as “Cinder is superior to the characters who have performed these feats.”


Weaknesses

Azula



While she might be extremely ruthless, Azula is far from perfect. Being based on her emotional state, her firebending can become more wild and unfocused if she loses control. This will make her a more dangerous fighter, but at the cost of easily exhausting her. And considering her extremely fragile sanity, the chances of it happening becomes more likely as a fight drags on. Though it’s worth noting she’s mostly overcome this after the events of Smoke & Shadow.

Even without her mental state hindering her, firebending is at an innate disadvantage in the presence of water or intense cold, making it harder to conjure in these conditions.

Cinder




Cinder is extremely arrogant, egotistical, and highly unstable, to the point that even the slightest setback will make her lose her cool. This is especially bad during combat since she prefers using her powers for intimidation and isn’t used to fighting others, which will cause her to go into an explosive rage the instant a fight isn’t going her way.

Even setting aside her emotional instability, her Maiden powers make her innately vulnerable to the powers of the Silver Eyes, as contact with them will leave her weakened or heavily injured. Initial exposure to them even left her permanently blind in one eye, which a smart enough opponent could exploit. Also, since her replacement arm was made from the Grimm, its soulless nature leaves it unprotected by her Aura, making it rather vulnerable to attacks.

Summary

Azula






Advantages:
  • More experienced and better trained
  • More versatile pyrokinesis
  • More levelheaded and could take advantage of Cinder’s instabilities
  • Blue flames could potentially melt Cinder’s glass weapons
  • A̶ w̶e̶l̶l̶-̶w̶r̶i̶t̶t̶e̶n̶ v̶i̶l̶l̶a̶i̶n

Disadvantages:
  • Smaller arsenal
  • Cinder has more versatility in terms of overall powers
  • Cryokinesis could potentially counter her firebending
  • Azula in the Spirit Temple reset any interesting developments from the previous comics and set her back to square one


Debatable:
  • Takes AP if we stick to RWBY’s main canon and Ice Queendom, but using the Anthology manga would put it in Cinder’s favor
  • Holds a slight speed advantage with the general speed feats shown in RWBY, but the high ends would make Cinder blitz
  • Depending on AP, Azula would either completely invalidate Cinder’s Aura, wear it down over time, or be too weak to break through

Cinder






Advantages:
  • Larger arsenal
  • Maiden powers give her more versatility
  • Cryokinesis could potentially nullify Azula’s firebending


Disadvantages:
  • Azula has the more versatile pyrokinesis
  • Emotional instability and temper would make it easy for Azula to manipulate her
  • B̶a̶d̶l̶y̶-̶w̶r̶i̶t̶t̶e̶n̶ v̶i̶l̶l̶a̶i̶n
  • Has a crush on a 17 year old


Debatable:
  • Takes AP if you use Yang’s meteor feat; otherwise Azula’s stronger even with Vine scaling, albeit not by much
  • Blitzes Azula with the high ends of RWBY speed, but Azula’s slightly faster if you don’t buy them
  • Aura either gives a major edge in defenses or is too weak to matter depending on who has the superior AP

Before the verdicts

Should Azula scale to the past Avatars?


Though not as widely debated as the feat listed below, there is some question on whether or not it would be valid to scale Azula to past Avatars. There is some precedent to it, given that Azula’s lightning killed Aang while he was in the Avatar State and she could take that same lightning being redirected at her.

However, lightning has been treated oddly throughout Avatar, as sometimes it is treated as a form of durability negation, while other times, it works like any other kinetic projectile, such as when Azula took the redirected lightning herself. In addition, there is some debate as to if the Avatar State actually increases one’s physical durability beyond their normal one, and if Aang would have scaled to the feats of other Avatars in that immediate moment.

Thankfully, much of this issue can be sidestepped thanks to several of the best feats in the series being done by Avatars outside of the Avatar State, and a non-Avatar character. The latter, to start with, is Ghazan’s melting of one of the Air Temples. Some of the strongest characters in Legend of Korra have some impressive feats, but Toph even in her old age was at least on par with the likes of Kuvira’s bending, making it reasonable to say that when Toph calls herself the greatest Earthbender, she isn’t exaggerating. And she still refers to her adventures in AtLA as being her prime. Azula has numerous times where she keeps up with Toph, and her own attacks ward off Toph's earthbending. It’s reasonable to scale Azula to Ghazan, who is a notably powerful bender, but unlikely one stronger than a prime Toph.

Next comes feats performed by non-Avatar State Avatars. In particular, Kyoshi summoning the storm when she appears through Aang, and Roku’s trench being carved into the volcano. For the former feat, it is possible to argue that Kyoshi is just straight up enough of a bad bitch that nobody can really scale to her, but an argument can be made that what was done, was done through Aang, who Azula does scale to. And likewise Roku was a very powerful Avatar, but the feat he performed was right around the end of his life, when he was a far less capable old man. Sozin even contributed once he had arrived, alongside Roku’s own non-Avatar State actions. With so many characters in AtLA’s age stated to be among the best in the world at their arts and revolutionizing the world, Azula being one of the final bosses for two of them indicates that those feats are among those she should reasonably scale to.

In conclusion, while it’s possible to argue that Azula would not scale to full Avatar State feats, there are enough reasons to scale Azula to the non-Avatar State feats that it isn’t particularly necessary. If anything, the feats from Avatars would just upscale from them, regardless of Azula’s role in such.

Vine’s Feat


One of the more controversial feats in RWBY comes from Volume 8, where Vine Zeki contains a bomb that was originally meant to kill Monstra and was later repurposed to destroy Mantle. Arguments for and against this feat have been discussed extensively in this G1 blog, but if you’d like shortened versions (plus some updated arguments via material that was released after the blog):

Arguments for it:

Vine’s semblance, Aura Vines, is an extension of his Aura, and he used his Semblance to form the bubble shield that contained the bomb. Vine may have died while containing it, but that’s because he would’ve been weakened at the time from using his Semblance, which is noted to drain the user’s Aura.

While Vine’s constructs have never been broken by any of the other cast members, Team RWBY should scale to him since they’ve taken on Cinder, whose status as a Maiden would make her a top tier of the verse and naturally put her above Vine. This is backed up by the Japanese guidebook RWBY Promenade, which describes Maiden powers as “more powerful than a Semblance.”

Arguments against it:

In regards to the bomb, its ability to destroy Mantle is vaguely defined. Even if we assume it was meant to destroy Mantle completely, the thermal radiation would affect Atlas, which would go against Ironwood’s goals (something Ironwood’s Semblance prevents him from doing). Additionally, the statement used to calculate the bomb’s radius comes from Harriet, a soldier who had nothing to do with the bomb’s creation, has no information on what it’s actually capable of, and wouldn’t be able to know the exact timeframe the bomb goes off. Even if you ignore that, the same statement to get the bomb’s timeframe also has Harriet say it would kill them even if they tried to escape.

That alone should be a red flag, but there are several other problems with the logic used to scale others to the bomb. First and foremost, Vine died performing this feat, and it would be disingenuous to argue he was weakened from fueling his Semblance. Vine’s Aura and Semblance are explicitly different colors, which indicates the two aren’t necessarily intertwined. Even the statement about Aura being a battery for Semblances is contradicted by multiple examples of characters using their Semblance without draining their Aura (like Ironwood and Flynt Cole).

The second biggest problem with scaling the cast to Vine is that nobody in the series has been shown breaking his defenses. Even Penny, a Maiden, only managed to move his constructs and couldn’t actually break them, which blatantly contradicts Promenade’s claim that Maiden powers are stronger than Semblances.

And while it isn’t brought up in the G1 blog, there’s another caveat with this scaling. Even if Vine’s Aura was directly confirmed to be powering his Semblance and the rest of the cast somehow scaled to his constructs, they still wouldn’t scale to the bomb’s full output. Surface area alone would gut the energy everyone else would’ve taken (which, as stated above, they would’ve died from), and Team RWBY never pushed Vine to the extent of outputting the same energy as his sacrifice. They did force him to use his Semblance defensively during their fight, but it’s highly unlikely that Vine would put the same amount of energy into blocking regular attacks as he would a big sacrificial bubble shield.

Penny Pushing Amity

A feat with some degree of contention in RWBY has always been Penny pushing Amity Arena. There are many different facets of this feat that make it extremely difficult, if not impossible to truly get numbers for. The weight of the arena, separate from any sort of lift created or other facets, is reasonably able to be gleaned and measured, but those aforementioned issues make it hard to tell how much Penny is contributing.

The three active stabilizers would be providing enough lift to hold up three quarters of the weight, and the distance is just as hard to determine. One would think that you could simply use the screen that Maria and Pietro are shown using to measure the arena’s altitude, but the screen has some issues, most notably that the ground level line would have the arena being some couple hundred meters off the ground, which is simply not consistent with what we are shown. Other methods of how far she pushes the arena become extremely speculative, and ultimately it all becomes moot when you consider Amity Arena’s design. The bottom part of the arena is a massive gravity dust crystal. This means that ultimately, the arena has an ambiguous amount of its weight negated, making it impossible to put any number to the feat. With what information we have, there’s ultimately nothing that can be done with it.

Is RWBY Anthology Usable?

RWBY’s gotten a series of manga releases that would’ve massively increased Cinder’s power, but the usage of the manga is quite debatable, so from here, this’ll be explaining what the manga is, and the arguments for/against its usage.

The RWBY Anthology is a collection of 5 releases that act as side stories during the Beacon Arc (IE Vol 1-3), with all of the original cast. They were licensed by RT themselves and were created by Home-Sha.

As for it being canon- it’s VERY hard to say, as despite being stated to be “in tune with the show,” nothing’s outright saying it’s part of the canon. Even the author himself stated “maybe, maybe not,” and that he had no idea if it was, making it very ambiguous if it actually IS canon.

It doesn’t help that there are 2 major contradictions to the show found in the “I Burn” anthology, those being Weiss summoning a meteor and Yang having statues built in her honor. It’s explicitly stated in the show that the Schnee family’s Semblance allows them to create glyphs that summon copies of their defeated foes. Meanwhile, the anthology has Weiss use it to summon a meteor, which raises a few issues. Winter’s explanation is that the glyphs are used to summon fallen foes. A “foe” would imply the being in question is sentient, and last I checked, meteors aren’t sentient. This means if we go by the explanations for Weiss’ power in canon, the meteor shouldn’t qualify as an enemy for her to defeat or (by extension) something she can summon.

But for the sake of argument, let’s ignore that and say that since it happened on screen, it should count as something Weiss can pull off. There’s still a massive continuity error in this scenario. After destroying the meteor, the narration states that Yang became recognized as the hero that saved the world and had statues built in her honor. This… blatantly does not happen in the main show since Team RWBY is relatively unknown by this point.

Even if we ignore the issue of canonicity, Yang’s meteor feat is still incredibly divisive. Given the manga’s more comedic tone, you could easily assume this is nothing more than a gag feat and that it’s unusable. On the other hand, the feat still happened on screen and is intended to be a demonstration of Yang’s strength. But then again you could point to the problem of consistency. Feats of this scale are never displayed in the series proper, not by Yang or anyone else.

And if we ignore THAT, there’s still the question of whether this would scale to Cinder at all. A story in the JNPR anthology revolves around the events before Pyrrha’s death, but Cinder herself barely appears throughout the entire series. Excluding this cameo in “Black Beauty and the Cat-Eared Girl,” the only time she shows up properly is during “The Prince and Me,” which takes place mostly during a dream sequence, and her only feats are displayed in that dream.

Ultimately, whether or not the anthology manga is useful is extremely subjective and dependent on your standards. Are you okay with including it because it was officially licensed by the creators and said to be in line with the show? Or do you feel the statements from the author and contradictions to the main series invalidate it?

Is Ice Queendom Usable?

One of the more recent additions to RWBY canon was the Ice Queendom anime released in 2022. While it initially starts off as a retelling of the events of the first two volumes, the anime soon spins off into its own story involving the Nightmare, a Grimm capable of draining Aura by infesting a victim’s dreams, with most of the series occurring inside the world of Weiss’s dreams as the rest of her team works to free her and slay the Nightmare.

As is the case with everything else we’ve listed so far, there’s been some contention as to whether or not the feats and abilities shown in Ice Queendom are usable in a VS debate. Its status as a piece of side media would naturally leave it open to scrutiny should it heavily conflict with main canon, and the fact the series takes place in a dream would naturally dissuade others from using it.

In fairness, there are a few points against using it. During the events of Ice Queendom all of Team RWBY obtain new equipment and modified versions of their weapons while in Weiss’ dreamscape. And since they originate from a dream, they wouldn’t be considered part of RWBY’s standard arsenal or usable outside of the dream world. The same goes for Weiss and Blake when they transform into their Negative counterparts (which are later removed and become their own separate beings) as a result of the Nightmare’s influence.

However, while the equipment and powers displayed may not be usable, there are arguments to be made in favor of the feats displayed in the anime. Regarding its canonicity, Ice Queendom is stated to not be an alternate universe or reboot, but “canon adjacent,” meaning it's canon so long as it doesn't contradict stuff, which it doesn't. Its canonicity is also supported by the fact we see it being tied into the events of the first two volumes.

Regarding it being a dream, that's kinda the main premise, it mainly takes place in Weiss' dream realm after the Nightmare gets to her. The thing is, though, the remaining 3 members of Team RWBY directly enter into Weiss' dream, so it is the actual girls themselves. It's also shown that damage in the dream world affects the physical body, as seen when Negative Weiss attacks Ruby and when Ruby gets damaged during their rematch.

That said, the most notable feat in Ice Queendom, that being Negative Weiss making a storm, may not be applicable to AP in the same way as most storm feats, due to the dream setting of that part of the show. Negative Weiss affecting the world around them within the dreamscape can be seen more as warping the dream itself, than using AP to affect the weather. Shion, a character very familiar with Nightmare Grimm, even mentions how Negative Weiss is as powerful as she imagines herself to be. This seems to strongly imply a level of reality warping, especially factoring in other parts of Negative Weiss’ kit, such as teleportation that Weiss is unable to do normally. The feat is fine to apply to the other characters, but only insofar as being hit by a storm would be, that being relatively mundane in comparison. To give an example, this would be as if someone capable of lucid dreaming wanted to dream that there was a second moon. It wouldn’t be an act of physically building that moon, it would more so be the dimension around them warping to bring it into existence.

In short, there’s specific context that makes the anime exclusive weapons, feats and abilities unusable or debateable, but the physical feats themselves should be fine given that damage in the dream world transfers to the real world.


Verdicts




Br3ndan5

This is the first time in years that I actually researched a RWBY character, and it’s for a match that I didn’t care for at first, but it grew on me when I started imagining the potential fight choreography. In regards to the characters themselves, I thought Azula was cool when I first watched ATLA, and as someone who doesn’t care about RWBY, I feel nothing toward Cinder. All I know is the fandom hates her. But you’re not here to see me talk about the characters, you’re here to see who’d win in a fight, and in that category… it’s actually a bit of a toss-up.

Yeah, in a first for this blog’s history, a VS debate actually has some debate behind it. Real surprise there. And like most VS debates, it ultimately comes down to stats.

If we go purely off direct feats, Cinder burning through several layers of Amity Arena (4:02) would net an impressive 7.5 kilotons of TNT, well beyond Azula’s best feat of destroying part of a cliffside with lightning, which would only clock in at 7.3 tons of TNT. That’s over 1000x stronger, and speed isn’t much better with Cinder casually blocking gunshots and moving FTE versus Azula… dodging elemental attacks. Combine that with Cinder’s varied arsenal and the defensive abilities of Aura, and this should be a slam dunk for her, right?

That would be true… until we factor in scaling, at which point things start to get tricky. If we stick purely to the main canon, the best feat Cinder scales to would be the storm created by Raven (4:35), which comes out to 10 kilotons of TNT. You could get her higher by scaling her to Vine containing this bomb… as long as you ignore the myriad of problems that come with using it, like the fact he died performing that feat, the bomb being stated to kill everyone there if it wasn’t stopped, and the unlikely scenario that Vine’s last ditch sacrificial shield is somehow 100% comparable to the same attacks and defenses he uses in battle.

Yeah, needless to say, I don’t buy the Vine feat. So where’s that leave Cinder compared to Azula? Well, there are feats that could get potentially higher than Raven scaling with things like Negative Weiss’ storm and Yang’s meteor feat, which yield results from megatons to gigatons. Except these feats have their own issues, with the first being debatably unusable because of how the dream world functions and the second having context that blatantly contradicts canon.

In other words, Cinder’s going to be fighting an uphill battle considering Azula has repeatedly held her own against the members of Team Avatar, some of whom have demonstrated feats over two, three, or even 130 times stronger than Raven’s storm! And if we scale Azula to other benders in the franchise, we’d get yields that reach even higher in the megaton range, which would only further that gap! Considering the sheer number of consistent megaton level calculations, it’s safe to say Azula should take AP at their best.

With the gap potentially either really low or ludicrously high, Cinder would need to have some sort of speed advantage to overcome that, or at the very least stay in the game for a bit! And the answer to that is… highly dependent on RWBY’s speed. Using the most consistent feats, you’d get yields in the Hypersonic to Massively Hypersonic range, but highballing Cinder would let her upscale from Adam blocking a particle shot, which gets decently into Relativistic. Meanwhile, Azula should scale to the lightning reacting feats from Team Avatar, which are consistently within the Massively Hypersonic+ range. Depending on where you place Cinder, this would either be a minor disadvantage (at lowest) or a massive edge. For the sake of argument, let’s use the highest options for both, and in that case, Cinder’s faster by over 1100 times!

So we’ve got an enormous AP gap versus a wider speed gap. What about their other factors?

Well, when it comes to experience and skill, Azula is easily the better of the two. We’ve got someone who’s been training since she was a toddler and became a prodigy… and a woman whose only training consisted of intermittent sessions and having wild monsters repeatedly chucked at her. And when it comes to intellect, both are manipulative, but Azula’s repeatedly pulled it off on the people around her and masterminded takeovers of cities. Yeah, Azula has her iconic breakdown scene, but that had a ton of context behind it, like her friends betraying her and the pressure of succeeding the crown. Meanwhile, Cinder constantly flips her shit whenever things don’t go her way.

Granted, Cinder ultimately has the better arsenal of the two thanks to her Dust and wide variety of magic weapons. When it comes to their powers, Azula has the better pyrokinesis with her firebending, and her lightningbending would give her AOE and a means of blinding Cinder. Aside from that, Cinder’s Scorching Caress and other elemental abilities give her better ways of manipulating her surroundings, with her cryokinesis and aerokinesis in particular giving potential counters Azula’s firebending… if it weren’t for the fact Cinder barely uses them. Her Aura could theoretically give her better defenses, but she’s also half blind and has an entire arm that’s unprotected by it, which Azula could easily exploit given her greater intellect.

It doesn’t help that while Cinder can regrow her arm, it’s extremely painful and time consuming, and that’s assuming she’d have the chance to pull it off with Azula constantly bearing down on her. This would leave Cinder in some less than favorable conditions, given her general instability, the fact she’s never had to fight with just one arm, and Azula’s superior fighting skill. It’s not like her Aura would let her hold out long enough to adapt either. Not only has Cinder never shown the ability to adapt to those kinds of circumstances, with the enormous AP gap between them, Azula would quickly wear down her Aura, if not instantly break it! And without her main defense to back her up, it would only be a matter of time before Azula’s firebending takes Cinder out.

Cinder’s speed and versatility would give Azula pause, but in the end, the fire princess has the raw power, sly cunning, and pure skill to pull off a win.

Cinder doesn’t stand a Semblance of a chance, and Azula will ensure her hopes of victory go up in flames!

Toppat Torchwick

Oi, Ello there lads. I haven’t done much in terms of my connections towards this mu, but i know my sister likes Avatar, and I like RWBY, so I have that sorta sweet connection with this mu because of that, heh. RWBY stats have been uh, quite a bit of a mess recently, so I wanna try getting my thoughts on le board on my thoughts so far (watch as V10-if it happens buffs the verse… I wish-)

For starters, Azula def has the edge in AP-the Gazahn feat being 8.8 megatons definitely outclasses Cinder… but imo isn’t enough for a one shot. Sure, Cinder’s mid ends being around the town-large town levels won’t cut it, but her high ends from the Vine Feat and Ice Queendom storm help her out considerably. Those are debatable, however, so time for me to lay my thoughts on it.

Vine’s feat is DEFINITELY a mess, that’s for sure. I think it’s a decent feat to use overall, albe without holes. Despite Vine dying from the feat, he pulled a lot of his aura onto his shield, and still was able to contain it in the end, and aura COULD technically block an attack such as that magnitude, albe a double tap would probably get around it anyways. Cinder however, shouldn’t have that issue, with her being a Maiden and all-putting her power considerably above Vine as a whole, so at the very least, she could be downscaling from such a feat. This is debatable, however-wouldn’t say it’s a mess if it wasn’t lol.

Luckily, Ice Queendom, however, is way easier to defend as a whole. First things first, IQ is fine as supplementary material-it being canon adjacent and isn’t directly out of place within RWBY as a whole. We’ve accepted other non-canon stuff for supplementary material-with stuff like Tekken Tag 2 arguably being less justified than Ice Queendom, so I hold this to the same standards. For the feat in question-Negative Weiss’s storm, despite being in a dream, dreams in RWBY have affected the user physically before, and the team’s able to battle Negative Weiss physically once they enter her dream, so scaling should be fine. As for the argument for it being reality warping for the feat, it does feel kinda janky imo because the dream is still affecting Weiss physically, isn’t out of place for what she can do in the real world, and how the team was still affected and hurt by her physically, so that falls apart.

With this in mind, Ice Queendom and the Vine feat to a lesser extent, helps Cinder even AP out, putting the 2 in similar megatons ranges. Neither are gonna win via sheer AP alone, so it really depends on speed as well… which unfortunately for the Fire Nation Princess, is heavily stacked against her favor.

Cinder massively upscaling from Adam’s particle feat, as well as dodging Penny’s lasers (which are stated to be light speed), puts her WELL into the relativistic ranges, in comparison to Azula dodging lightning, which only got MHS. A HUGE speed gap, and one Azula can’t reliably close the gap on.

And from there, Cinder seems to hold more important advantages over Azula. She has far more oppressive weapons to throw out against Azula from her arrows and blades conjured , her Maiden powers gives her way more versatility generally and could freeze Azula into place. Azula in terms of hax doesn’t seem to have anyone game changing-sure her firebending is more versatile and is more experienced of a fighter, but none of that helps her in the end, especially against someone who’s significantly faster than she could ever hope to catch. Hell, Aura helps defend against most of her attacks with relative AP, meaning Azula would struggle to deal any significant damage to her.

As much as I don’t like Cinder, I don’t really see her losing this fight, from where I have the 2 in stats. Both should be relative in AP, but Cinder being significantly faster as well as having more versatility overall seals the Fire Nation Princess’s fate, meaning the Fall Maiden’s only gonna leave Remnants behind Ozai’s Born-Lucky Princess.

My vote goes to Cinder Fall.

(Now I hope people shut up about RWBY stats being eh in comparison to other franchises-I am gonna lose my mind if I see another sarcastic comment)

Cryotechnics

As someone who has never contributed to debates or these types of blogs before, I had to look over the blog a couple of times to really get my thoughts across when deciding a verdict for this matchup. As someone who recently got into Avatar during the pandemic and grew up with a huge hyperfixation on RWBY (with the eventual falling-off once they took all the videos off Youtube but that’s a story for another day) I can safely say I am pretty knowledgeable when it comes to both series and this matchup in particular. Azula VS Cinder Fall is really fun and doesn’t deserve as much hate as it gets (imo it’s mostly because Cinder is very badly written but eh). Anywhozers, let’s get into my thoughts on who wins because I don’t wanna ramble longer than I need to.

Firstly, the main factor in this debate is stats as the battle could go either way depending on what you believe for both. I’m just gonna say personally, I will not be including Ice Queendom or the Manga Anthology as I find the logics behind certain feats (i.e. the Ice Queendom Storm) to be questionable but also directly contradict the primary source material (seriously how did Weiss summon that meteor!?). As well as why Cinder should scale to these at all in the context of said material. So yeah, I will not be including those in my personal verdict.

So firstly, it’s obvious using only direct feats that Cinder would be stronger than Azula with the former exerting 7.5 Kilotons of TNT through blowing a hole through Amity Arena, compared to the latter’s measly 7.3 Tons of TNT from blowing up part of a cliffside with her lightningbending. However, that’s only scratching the surface because the real difficulty lies in scaling. Again I am not including the Manga and Ice Queendom in my personal verdict because of the logistics but my opinion differs from others so take my verdict with a grain of salt.

First of all, Azula scaling to past Avatars isn’t too far-fetched when you really think about it given she actually killed Aang with her lightningbending, and in the continuation comics she took a blast from her own lightning being redirected at her. Fulling scaling to past Avatars is fairly shaky but that isn’t even where her best scaling comes from. Ironically it’s from TLoK with Ghazan smothering the Northern Air Temple in lava. 
 
Near the end of Book 3, Bolin and Mako fight Ghazan and Ming-Hua (mainly Ghazan, Ming-Hua is fodder anyway). Bolin was able to match Ghazan’s lavabending pretty evenly for some time. This is important as Bolin is in no way a stronger earthbender than Toph. Sorry to change to subjects so quickly but Toph is a special case when it comes to scaling. It’s true that in TLoK, she mentions that her days back in the time of ATLA were her prime in terms of bending prowess, and Azula has shown to be capable of dishing out hits to and from Toph and the rest of Team Avatar. Going back to Ghazan’s feat, that would be around 8.8 Megatons of TNT. Speed needs a lot less explaining as good ol’ brother Zuzu redirected Ozai’s lightning, which is well over Mach 320 or massively hypersonic speeds.

Now onto Cinder, as a Maiden she is on par with the likes of Raven who created a storm. Around 10 Kilotons of TNT. This isn’t as impressive but the real meat and potatoes is Vine’s feat of securing the bomb’s explosion. Now I know the main criticism with this feat, he died rip bozo. However, I don’t think we should rule it out as there is more than enough leeway to consider it reasonable scaling. First of all, Vine’s semblance, Aura Vines, is an extension of his aura, that’s what semblances are. Aura definitively does have a limit and will break once it reaches said limit, so it’s safe to say that him securing the bomb’s explosion and dying was his aura’s limit. It’s also worth noting that aura can become stronger with enough training. During RWBY’s fight with the Ace Ops (people who should realistically be higher in experience to Team RWBY), the Ace Ops lost, Vine being one of them. And yes, his aura did break then too. Another instance is in the finale of V8 where Yang activates her semblance and immediately gets one-shotted by Neo. 
 
Admittedly, that could be perceived as an outlier in terms of both parties’ power levels but remember that Yang did the same exact tactic when she confronted Adam in Volume 3, and she ended up losing an arm so it is clear that Yang had plenty of time to train her aura and this was why she beat Adam in their rematch even if she had help (and Blake’s aura got broken in that fight as well). The point still stands that Team RWBY should all be stronger aura-wise to Vine and in turn, Cinder, should be physically stronger than all of them pre-V9. A last minute thing to note is in Volume 3, Cinder broke Pyrrha’s aura during their fight and Pyrrha undoubtedly was one of the most skilled students at Beacon during that arc. Why else would she have been the next contender for the Fall Maiden if Cinder didn’t show up and ruin everything?

So yeah, Cinder scaling to this feat shouldn’t be an issue. Not like it will matter though as Vine’s feat caps out at 7.5 Megatons of TNT, lower than Azula’s best scaling. Not by much as it’s a gap of 8.8 Megs to 7.5 Megs, but Azula should be safely stronger. Speed on the other hand is where things turn a full 180. Cinder scales to Adam Taurus who blocked a beam from a spider-droid robot, which is 42% the speed of light! So while Azula is stronger and in turn more durable than Cinder, Cinder should be significantly faster.

Now with abilities, Cinder is at a disadvantage as her main ability, Azula can direct counter and/or redirect it back at her. Azula, who is a prodigy in firebending, can easily manipulate Cinder’s fire blasts and use them against her as well as create her own weapons like fire whips, pinwheels, and again shoot lightning. Cinder isn’t out of the game yet as she actually has a lot more options than Azula with her Midnight doubling as a sword as well as a bow and arrow, summoning multiple fire swords that explode on command, and her multitude of elemental abilities as a Maiden. Cinder can freeze Azula in place with ice which is a very useful trump card as Azula and other firebenders do not fair well when in cold temperatures or frozen in ice (Azula has first hand experience in that regard), so Cinder does have a decent wincon if all else fails, it’s just a matter if she’d actually use it. 
 
Cinder’s Grimm arm won’t play much of a factor as yes it is good for holding Azula in place and choking her out, it is mostly used to target maidens and drain their powers so it won’t be as useful here as Maiden magic and bending ability are very different so it’s not like Cinder could drain Azula of her bending. Cinder also will have the mobility advantage as while Azula can technically fly with firebending acting as jet boosters for herself, Cinder is shown to fly a lot more freely and can spam projectiles from afar to keep Azula at bay. So while Azula has ways of countering Cinder’s fire and using it against her, Cinder has ways of controlling the battle at a distance and using her maiden abilities to counter Azula’s main weakness as well.

Lastly with tertiary factors, Azula is both more experienced and more level-headed in a fight, despite being the younger of the two. Azula is a prodigy when it comes to firebending and especially close-quarters compared to Cinder’s training with Rhodes, as well as having the better win-loss record. Cinder has shown multiple times to get aggressive when the tides aren’t in her favour, and is very cocky when they are. As well as using her maiden powers with every chance she gets to get the upper hand. Cinder has fought and defeated many talented foes but Azula’s achievements at her age are leagues more impressive than what Cinder has done as Cinder’s fights are usually ending in tap-outs (i.e. Neo once Cinder activated the maiden powers), stalemates due to outside influences (Ambrosia’s portals were closing so Winter didn’t have time to continue fighting), or Cinder losing (Against Raven, Penny, and Ruby with the Silver Eyes) with the exception of Pyrrha and Ozpin which Cinder actually beat, as well as Winter without the winter maiden powers, and even then we don’t know if Cinder would actually have beaten Winter in their rematch as previously mentioned, Ambrosia’s portals were closing up so she couldn’t keep fighting.

I’ve been pretty back and forth on this but in conclusion, while Cinder has shown to be quite capable and holds a staggering speed advantage as well as better overall abilities, Azula’s better AP, control of pyrokinesis, and fighting experience puts her above the soon to be Fallen Maiden. My vote ultimately goes to Azula.

Tsubori

Alright, one of the classic RWBY matchups that’s had some staying power for a while. It’s definitely one of the more arguable fights for the series, where there’s some back and forth in advantages and disadvantages. Above, people have already gone over the most important feats, that being Vine’s feat, the amity arena stuff, and so forth. But some may notice a few missing feats, that being Kevin’s quaking, the Centinel’s damage of Atlas, and a few various Light oriented feats.

To break these down, I’ll start with the two AP feats. For those who don’t know, Kevin is the Wyvern Grimm that broke out of a mountain (14:21) back in Volume 3. The feat itself gets up to 70 kilotons, a solid 7 times multiplier over, in my opinion, Cinder’s highest reasonable spot, at 10 kilotons from Raven’s storm. And the calc itself has nothing wrong with it. The issue becomes that nobody actively scales to Kevin in any regard. Ruby only affected it with the Silver Eyes, a non-AP ability that specifically counters Grimm. One could point out that characters did fight another Wyvern in the Justice League movies, but even the canon status of the JL movies aside, this is still problematic for two reasons. As we’ve seen with numerous races of Grimm, such as Beowolves, Grimm of the same type can vary in size and power, making it entirely unreasonable to assume that the one they fought in the JL movie was identical in power to the one at the Fall of Beacon. Second issue is that it was all in a simulation. At that point, the Wyvern was about as strong as Watts decided to program it to be, and any threads that connect it to the real thing are severed.

The next feat is very much in a similar vein. The Centinels that busted parts of Atlas. It’s a relatively decent feat that reaches nearly 25 kilotons, but unfortunately if you compare the size of the Grimm to other metrics used to measure feats, you find that the Grimm is the size of a track field, over a hundred meters long. Comparatively, the ones that other characters have fought are about a meter or two, give or take. So it simply doesn’t work to scale characters to the Centinels that did the feat, when nobody has ever fought those Grimm except the main cannons of Atlesian ships.

Next let’s talk speed. RWBY has been having Adam as it’s crutch for speed for a while now, with that nice tasty PAC feat from Adam. A smooth 42% the speed of light. But there are arguments for higher speeds, just… Unfortunately they don’t hold up to scrutiny. Silver Eyes is our first stop, and clearly magical light that doesn’t act at all like light. Some do make an argument that the actual flash of magic does radiate a light, but it’s already questionable enough, and it not having lit up further objects can simply be a matter of the light intensifying, and it’s not a matter of the light having not reached yet, as we often do see Silver Eyes portrayed a starting off dim and getting brighter. Sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, but it’s frequently shown not being full brightness immediately.

This brings us to all other laser weaponry in the series. Ironwood’s weapon, and Penny’s weapons being the prime ones pointed to. But both of them have significant force, and have shown explosive properties. When Penny blasted Neo, it chucked her halfway across the arena, and everytime Ironwood shoots, it makes gigantic explosions. Clearly neither is a light speed laser, which leaves characters at that 42%.

But that said, it IS a solid speed advantage. It’s just unfortunate that Cinder can’t really do anything with it here. The speed gap may be massive, but Azula is almost a thousand times stronger, so Cinder is going to be accomplishing nothing with any of her attacks, while Azula only needs a single glancing blow to one-tap Cinder, Aura and all. The freezing argument was at least a solid mention, as a possible win-con for Cinder, but the mechanics of it are far from reliable. First off, Raven broke out of it after a short time, so someone as far stronger as Azula is, would break through it like it’s not there. It also clearly only freezes the outside of someone, as in both cases where it was used, the character suffered no internal damage and was only immobilized. This leaves Cinder without options, and more importantly, without a chance at winning. Azula will eventually catch Cinder with some AoE, and pass Salem’s Witch’s trial.


Final Tally


Azula (3)- Br3ndan5, Cryotechnics, Tsubori


Cinder (1)- Toppat Torchwick





Comments

  1. DarrylJuly 15, 2024 at 10:08 AM

    Thank you for making one of my top 5 favorite matchups (PEAK), also i definitely side with Team Cinder, her speed advantage alone in my opinion gives her a lot of leeway.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OswaldJuly 15, 2024 at 2:05 PM

    Lmao yeah ok

    ReplyDelete

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