RWBY



"Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest White is cold and always yearning, burdened by the royal test Black the beast descends from shadows Yellow beauty burns gold"

In the world of Remnant, humanity clings to civilization in the face of the creatures of Grimm, a veritable army of monsters and supernatural forces. Only the power of a substance known simply as "Dust" allowed humanity to win the battle for its survival against the Grimm, and even now its creatures are only barely held at bay.

Responsible for defending human civilization from the forces of darkness are the Huntsmen and Huntresses, highly skilled individuals with unique weapons and a mastery of the use of Dust. These guardians are trained in special institutions, such as Beacon Academy in the city-state of Vale.

RWBY follows the story of four extraordinary girls and their friends as they make their way through their training at Beacon, and come face-to-face with not only the creatures of Grimm, but all-too-human threats to the survival of humanity in this dangerous world.

An innovative Web Animation series created by the late Monty Oum of Rooster Teeth, it was heralded months in advance by a series of carefully doled-out trailers ("Red", "White", "Black" and "Yellow"), which built up a remarkable level of excitement and speculation before its premiere in July 2013.

As of this writing it has completed the third of a projected twenty "volumes" (although that number is subject to change); Volume 4 began release on 22 October 2016. In addition, a video game adaptation based on the series, RWBY: Grimm Eclipse was released on 1 December 2015 on PC as an Early Access "work-in-progress" in Steam. And on May 7, 2016, Rooster Teeth released the first installment of RWBY Chibi.

(List is compiled as episodes appear, and is subject to constant update/revision.)

A-E
"Weiss: Are you telling me that this mangy... (the camera switches between Zwei and Weiss) drooling... mutt is gonna wiv wif us foweva? Oh yes he is, oh yes he is! Oh, isn't he adorable!"
 * Abandoned Area: Mountain Glenn, a failed attempt to expand the Kingdom of Vale to the southeast.  It's not clear if the name refers to the entire area, the Ghost City there, or both.
 * Absurdly Sharp Blade: Ruby's scythe, which can effortlessly slice were beowolves in half, chop down old-growth trees, and is capable of decapitating giant monsters.
 * Blake's gunblade Gambol Shroud effortlessly slices through armored security robots and a thick steel train coupling.
 * Action Girl: Pretty much every female character.
 * Adults Are Useless: Thoroughly averted.  The school kids we've seen in action may be badass, but when we finally see the adults cut loose, it's pretty damned clear why they're teaching the kids.  And the bad guys are just as badass.
 * Alien Sky: Remnant is definitely not Earth, not with a shattered moon in the sky.
 * Even more pronounced in Salem's realm, which always seems to have a dim, blood-colored sky.
 * All CGI Cartoon
 * All Planets Are Earthlike: As seen briefly in one of the World of Remnant shorts, Remnant seem to be a near-twin of Earth in many ways.
 * Averted with Salem's domain, an inhospitable, rocky realm which somehow manages to have a dark red sky even during the day. It's possible that it isn't even on Remnant proper, since it appears from comments made in early V4 that no one knows where she's based.
 * All There in the Manual: Starting in August 2014, Rooster Teeth began releasing World of Remnant videos -- short "history lessons" about the world -- on some of the "off weeks" between episodes.  All of them provide key background information, all of which is ultimately plot-relevant.
 * Alternate Universe: No argument. A broken moon in the sky, unfamiliar continents, active magic with technology, humanity besieged by hordes of monsters...
 * Am I Right?: Yang says this in V2E1 as part of defending an Incredibly Lame Pun on her own name.
 * American Accents: In addition to the "default" accent imposed by being an American production, the two cops investigating the Dust shop robbery in V1E15 have distinct Joisey/Bronx accents.
 * Ancient Tradition:
 * And This Is For: Ren in V4E12,.
 * Animation Bump: Overall, Volume 2 is a vast improvement over Volume 1.
 * Any time we see fighting, dancing or other action tends to be visibly better animation than people just walking around.
 * Although by the end of Volume 3, the walking and running animation has improved considerably.
 * Volume 4, from the very first moments. The improvement due to the change in animation software is palpable.
 * Animesque: A deliberate style choice made by Monty Oum when planning the series.
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Dust, the "energy propellant".  According to The World of Remnant, it has a thousand uses, from fueling effects that look like magic spells, to powering tech like electricity, to essentially forming "cartridges" for guns.  It is directly responsible for human civilization and survival.
 * Art Evolution: The design for the beowolves changed between the release of the "Red" trailer and the series premiere in July 2013.
 * Art Shift: The "news broadcast" seen at the end of V1E1 is, or is made to look like, traditional animation instead of CGI.
 * Yang's Flash Back in V2E6 is presented in a completely different art style from anything we've seen before in the series.
 * The World of Remnant shorts use a very stylized, angular silhouette style reminiscent of paper cut-outs.
 * Artificial Intelligence: Apparently a routine accomplishment of Atlesian technology -- their robots all possess AI, and the communications tower has a virtual AI receptionist.  The pinnacle of Atlesian AI is.
 * Artistic License Astronomy/Artistic License Physics: According to Word of God, Remnant's moon is not tidally locked the way Earth's is, allowing the shattered part to rotate into and out of view (which is why we sometimes see a full unbroken moon).  However, the general consensus is that a two-planet system like Earth-Moon or Remnant-Remnant!Moon will pretty much inevitably end up with at least one of the component worlds tidally locked to the other over the course of the usual "lifespan" of a solar system.  This of course assumes Remnant has about the same mass as Earth and its moon is similar in mass to ours, that it exists in a universe that (mostly) functions like ours, and that it wasn't artificially constructed along with its moon in geologically recent time.  Some of those assumptions might be safe.  Some... might not.
 * For instance, Remnant's moon is also either much closer to its primary than Earth's is, or much bigger -- in its smallest renderings it appears to have a significantly larger angular diameter than our moon does, and if the largest it appears is not artistic exaggeration it must also have a wildly elliptical orbit. Even if the "huge moon" is exaggeration, Remnant should still have tides everywhere that put the Bay of Fundy to shame.  Maybe it's crumbling because tidal stresses are tearing it apart...
 * Note also that we never see a crescent moon -- the moon is always full, whether it's in pieces or not.
 * Based on the globe visible behind Professor Port during his lectures in V1, it's clear that the maps of Remnant we've seen are the entire planet instead of a small section of the whole (as has been suggested as a solution for the "megacity" issue discussed in Writers Have No Sense of Scale below); this puts Vale roughly at Remnant's equator -- yet they a temperate climate. That suggests a much colder planet which should possess commensurately larger ice caps than Earth does, but if the maps are to be trusted Remnant's Arctic seems barely touched by ice, and there's none in its Antarctic.
 * Artsy Moon: If you consider being broken into a few dozen pieces "artsy".
 * As You Know: Ozpin says this to Blake in a brief moment of exposition toward the end of V2E2.
 * Ascended Meme: In V2E4, Team RWBY uses some of the Fan Nicknames for the various shipping pairs as names for maneuvers and joint attacks.
 * In V3E2, Jaune tries to direct Team JNPR similarly, but apparently no one else on the team remembered what the combo names were or meant. Or that they existed.
 * Ash Face: Weiss suffers this after Ruby's "accident" with dust in V1E2, and also after sacrificing herself to take out Flint Cole in V3E5.  She shakes it off in seconds the first time, but the second time it lasts for a while.
 * Audible Sharpness: All over the place, given how many blades are in this series.  Particularly noticeable during the Tournament in V3.
 * Avengers Assemble: The moment in V3E10 when all the teams are arming up.
 * Badass Family: The extended Long-Rose-Branwen clan.
 * Bag of Holding: The foot-and-a-half-long mailing tube in which Yang and Ruby's father sent them Zwei, a small heap of canned dog food and a can opener in V2E11.
 * Bar Brawl: Pretty much the majority of the "Yellow" trailer.
 * Battle Aura: Demonstrated by Yang in her trailer as part of her fire powers, but also seems to be a common (but not universal) manifestation of "aura" or a "semblance" in use.
 * Beast Folk: The Faunus, who are treated as second-class citizens.
 * Bellisario's Maxim: Invoked (along with the Rule of Funny) in the director's commentary track for volume 1 when discussing how Weiss and Ruby ended up clinging to the flying Nevermore in V1E8.
 * Bifurcated Weapon: A frequent feature of the weapons in this series.
 * Big "What?":
 * Big Bad: Although as of Volume 2 this appeared to be Cinder Fall, starting the end of Volume 3 it's pretty clear that.
 * Big Ball of Violence: Ruby and Yang, the first night at Beacon in V1E3.  Complete with the sound of That Poor Cat.
 * Big No:
 * Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: Blake's weapons seem to demonstrate this in the "Black" trailer.
 * Pyrrha's spear/rifle and shield/chakram do this, thanks to her Semblance.
 * Blah Blah Blah: Professor Port's first lecture in V1E9 turns into this as the camera focuses on Weiss's growing irritation with Ruby's behavior in class.  We get it again early in V2E3.
 * Blackmail: For about a quarter of Volume 1, Cardin uses  secret to basically turn him into a lackey and dogsbody.
 * Bland-Name Product: During the food fight in V2E1, vending machines for "Dr. Piper" soda (as well as "People Like Grapes") can be seen at the base of the "table mountain".
 * Ruby is holding a "juice box" of milk labelled "Udder Satisfaction" at the start of the fight.
 * Zwei's dog food is "Gentleman's Best Friend" brand.
 * Blank White Eyes: Numerous times in the series.  Usually on Weiss.
 * Bloodless Carnage: The closest thing we see to spraying blood are showers of rose petals.  See also No Body Left Behind below.
 * Although at the end of V2E12 Ruby mentions that many people were hurt in the Grimm incursion, we never see any indication of any of these "many" casualties during or after the fight.
 * An odd case in V3E6 and E7: We never actually get to see.
 * Averted in V3E7, in that while we can't actually see the wounds that caused them, we do see the bloodstains on Mercury's pants from the damage ultimately responsible for the amputation of his legs and their cybernetic replacement.
 * Book Ends: The Jaune arc late in Volume 1 begins and ends with scenes on a roof.
 * Break the Cutie: What seems to be happening to.
 * Break Them by Talking: Cinder's broadcast in V3E9.
 * Bullet Time: Seen in the RTX 2016 teaser for V4.
 * Butt Monkey: Jaune in V1.  Lampshaded when he complains to Pyrrha that he wants to be more than just the "lovable idiot stuck in a tree while his friends are fighting for their lives."  With her help he (mostly) grows out of it.  (But not completely, as V4E1 testifies.)
 * By the Lights of Their Eyes: Several times, most notably during the cave sequence early V1E7.
 * Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: A mix of averted and expressed.  The obvious "wolfmen" Ruby fights in the "Red" trailer are called beowolves, but many of the other creatures of the Grimm are original and have original names.
 * Cape Snag: Ruby in V1E8 when one of the Nevermore's Feather Flechettes pins her cloak to the ground.
 * Cat Smile: Briefly seen on Neon Katt in V3E5.
 * Catapult to Glory: The final phase of Ruby's Crazy Enough to Work plan in V1E8 involved firing her at the Giant Nevermore using an immense slingshot improvised out of two stone pillars and Gambol Shroud's ribbon.
 * Chekhov's Gun: "Landing strategies" and the rocket-propelled lockers, by Word of God on the director's commentary track for Volume 1.
 * The rocket-propelled lockers showed up in use in V2E7. And get great use at the end of Volume 3.
 * And why did Ruby's silver eyes merit comment by Ozpin in V1E1? With the end of V3, we finally know...
 * Chekhov's News: In V1E2, a newscast shows a relatively-peaceful protest by Faunus before it's switched over to Glynda welcoming the students to Beacon. V1E9 introduces (to those who haven't seen the prologue trailers) the White Fang, a not-at-all-peaceful Faunus terrorist group.
 * Chess Motifs: The "artifacts" recovered during the initiation in V1E8 are oversized chess pieces.
 * The cryptic message "Queen has pawns" Ozpin receives from Qrow in V1E16.
 * The image of a queen that briefly appears on all the screens in the communications tower after Cinder appears to infect the Vale CTC with a virus in V2E7.
 * Chest Insignia: All of the girls in Team RWBY as well as a few other characters have distinctive symbols that are worn or appear on their equipment.
 * Ruby's rose symbol can be seen on her headphones in the first episode, and hangs on her belt near her right hip.
 * Her V4 outfit uses it as a cloakpin at her neck.
 * Weiss' snowflake is on the back of her jacket. (It also seems to be both the Schnee family symbol and the Trademark for the Schnee Dust Company.)
 * Blake's flower-like whatever-it-is can be seen at the top of one of her thigh-high stockings.
 * Yang wears her burning-heart insignia, partly hidden, on one breast. It also appears on her motorcycle helmet.
 * Although Nora's clothes and equipment have hearts on them, her actual symbol is a stylized "hammer-and-lightning-in-a-circle", which can be seen on her back, as the background during her "I'm queen of the castle" song-and-dance in V1E8, and behind her silhouette during the closing credits of an episode late in Volume 1.
 * Played for Laughs in V4E1, when Jaune reveals that the hoodie he wears under his armor has the head of cereal Mascot Pumpkin Pete (a cartoon rabbit) on it. (Ruby's reaction makes it clear that she's never seen Jaune in the hoodie without his armor before.)
 * Characterization Marches On: Designed into the story from the start -- the characters were never intended to be static, but grow and change as they progress through the story.  Compare Blake from the end of V1 with Blake from the start of V3 -- and V4.  Compare Yang from the "Yellow" trailer with Yang from early V4.
 * Chew Out Fake Out: Ruby expects Dr. Oobleck to chastise her when he sees that she's brought Zwei along to Mountain Glenn in V2E11, only for him to call her a genius instead for bringing a useful resource.
 * Chirping Crickets: Tumbleweed variation only, during the first encounter with Penny in V1E11.  Twice.  Blowing in two different directions.
 * Circling Birdies: When Ruby is momentarily stunned in V1E8, alternating stars and cartoon wolves orbit her head.
 * In the "Yellow" trailer, a stunned Junior momentarily is circled by a ring of hearts.
 * Color-Coded Elements: Definitely present, although not universal, and clearly linked to the Color Motifs.
 * Color Motif: The production team explicitly designed the look of everything in the series around a specific system of colors/meanings.
 * Colourful Theme Naming: As noted under Theme Naming.  Revealed in V2E8 to be a deliberate in-universe political choice among the peoples of the world in defiance of some tyrannical enemy who -- among other things -- sought to suppress and destroy all individuality and artistic expression. Monty Oum encouraged naming OCs and OC teams using this convention.
 * Combat Stilettos:
 * Weiss's boots in her combat gear look to have a four-inch or higher heel. Lampshaded by Ruby in V2E6 when she has trouble just walking in similar heels at the dance and wonders how Weiss can fight in them.
 * In the "Yellow" trailer, Melanie and Militia Malachite wear high-heeled ankle boots.
 * Comic Book: In V2E2, Jaune is seen reading one entitled "X-Ray & Vav", a Shout-Out to another Rooster Teeth production.  (Mercury steals a copy of the same issue from Tukson's shop in V2E1.)
 * Competence Zone: Realistically averted.  The main characters are supposed to be exceptional individuals, going to a school teaching them to be even more exceptional -- and their teachers are definitely more competent than they are, more than capable of teaching them things they need to know.  Other adults vary, just as they would in the real world.
 * Competition Coupon Madness: In V4E1 Jaune admits that he sent in 50 box tops from Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes to get the hoodie that he wears under his armor.  No wonder he recognized Pyrrha from the box...
 * Constructed World
 * Convection, Schmonvection: In V3E1 Reese Chloris supercharges her skateboard-weapon with fire Dust and is able to convert a block of ice holding a teammate to steam in a second or two -- without burning him.
 * Cranial Eruption: Happens to Weiss after her sister Winter smacks her in the head in V3E3.  Ruby pokes it back in.
 * Crash Into Hello: How Weiss met Ruby.  And how Weiss met Penny.
 * The Volume 1 director's commentary hinted that this might be a Running Gag for Weiss, but by the end of V3 it really hadn't materialized.
 * Crate Expectations: In V2E3, Ruby knocks down a pile of wooden crates (all amusingly labeled "Breakable Things") to deter a pair of pursuers.
 * Curse Cut Short: When Blake puts her sword to his throat in V1E16, Torchwick mutters "What the f..." before being interrupted.
 * Cuteness Proximity: Weiss upon meeting Zwei in V2E9:
 * Curse Cut Short: When Blake puts her sword to his throat in V1E16, Torchwick mutters "What the f..." before being interrupted.
 * Cuteness Proximity: Weiss upon meeting Zwei in V2E9:

"Dr. Oobleck: (commenting on the action at the Vytal Festival Tournament) And yes, Peter, these are certainly some spectacular spectacles on which to spectate on."
 * Cyborg: Possible with Atlesian technology; two characters are confirmed cyborgs by the end of V3, and.
 * Dances and Balls: A formal dance in V2E6 is the occasion for several important plot developments.
 * Death World: Remnant.  How humanity ever survived to achieve civilization is a miracle.  (Then again, see Writers Have No Sense of Scale, below.)
 * Defeat Means Friendship: Neon and Flint's reaction to their defeat by Weiss and Yang in the Vytal Tournament.
 * Department of Redundancy Department: This line from V3E1:


 * For added Bonus Points, he's manipulating his glasses as he says this.

"Ah! Sorry it took so long. Someone accidentally hit all the buttons in the elevator on the way up here. [Beat] It wasn't me."
 * Design-It-Yourself Equipment: Ruby offhandedly mentions in V1E3 that every student at Signal Academy designs and forges their own weapon.  It's unclear, though, whether this is common practice at all the "primary" Hunter schools, or unique to Signal.  (Jaune clearly doesn't know.)
 * Detonation Moon: Appears to have happened to Remnant's moon at some point.
 * Did Not Do the Research: During early Volume 1 in 2013 Monty Oum got a blast of Internet Backdraft on names and their pronunciations:  "Weiss Schnee", for instance, is more correctly pronounced something like "Vice Shnay", and "Yang" should sound like "Yong".  Oum has offered a Hand Wave for this, pointing out that Remnant is not Earth and their similarity to terms in Earthly languages is a coincidence.
 * Also, Casey Williams for mispronouncing "Super-Saiyin" (sounds like "super-sighin'") as "Super-Sayin'" in "I Burn".
 * Diegetic Switch: Subverted.  In the opening scenes of the very first episode, Ruby's clearly listening to "This Will Be The Day" until she decides to interrupt the robbery of the Dust shop.  After she follows one of the Mooks through the shop window, the music switches from a tinny, "heard over headphones" version to a high-quality version -- until we hear the "click" of Ruby turning off her player and the music stops.
 * Divide and Conquer:
 * Doomed Hometown: Strictly speaking not his home, but in V4E2, Jaune waxes enthusiastic about the next town Team RNJR is about to enter:  it was someplace he spent much of his childhood, so he knows everything about it.  However, he's barely done extolling its virtues when they look up and find it has been sacked and burned by bandits.
 * Dragged by the Collar: In V1E7, at the start of their initiation, Weiss turns around and drags Ruby off by the collar of her cape when she realizes her only other possible teammate is Jaune.
 * Drink Order: An important part of early character design according to Word of God.  When they figured out that Blake drank tea and Weiss drank coffee, Monty Oum and company felt they were starting to get somewhere.
 * Ruby, by the way, drinks coffee, black, with five sugars.
 * Drop the Hammer: Nora's weapon is a massive warhammer which is also a Grenade Launcher.  With hearts on it.
 * Dynamic Entry: Pyrrha into Ozpin's office in V3E12.
 * Early Installment Weirdness: The "shadow people" of Volume 1 -- black silhouettes used for almost everyone outside of the main cast.  They are replaced with fully-rendered individuals starting with V2E1.  According to Monty Oum at RTX 2014, the shadow people came about because the production staff basically overlooked the need to do crowd scenes until very late in the development process; the silhouettes were essentially a fast-and-dirty hack to keep them on-schedule, and in between Volumes 1 and 2 they were able to take the time to replace them.
 * During Volume 1, episodes could vary in length between three and fifteen minutes. Staring with Volume 2, episodes all were in the fifteen-to-twenty-minute range.
 * Starting in Volume 4, Rooster Teeth began using a different, dedicated animation package instead of Poser, resulting in far more attractive, fluid and visually realistic animation, turning all of the first three volumes into the early installments with their consequent weirdness.
 * Easter Egg: The "RWBYsaurus", a raptor-like dinosaur which appeared in several silly posts on Monty Oum's Twitter feed, can be seen falling from one of the Bullheads shot by Penny in V1E16.
 * Edible Ammunition/Edible Bludgeon: See the Food Fight in V2E1.
 * Elaborate Underground Base:
 * Eldritch Abomination: With the first half of V4, it is seems more and more likely that the Grimm are some variety of lesser abomination... and Salem is a greater.
 * Elemental Powers: Individual Semblances seem to run along elemental themes.
 * Also,
 * Elevator Buttons Mash: Described but not seen in V2E7, when Ruby arrives in Ozpin's office for a debrief after Cinder's infiltration of Beacon Tower:


 * Epic Flail: Son's pistol-chucks.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: Pretty much the entire world outside of the kingdoms in a nutshell.  And more than a few spots inside them, as well.
 * Everything's Better with Spinning:
 * Ruby's melee combat style involves many spinning moves that sweep her scythe through her enemies; her Super Speed mode often involves her spinning like a rifled bullet.
 * Cinder's moves in V2E7 also involve a fair amount of spinning.
 * Len demonstrates a spinning attack in V4E1.
 * Everything's Worse With Rapier Wasps: In V1E14.
 * Evil Laugh: Weiss emits one as part of a rant once she thinks she's figured out how to win the tabletop game the team is playing in V2E2.
 * Torchwick gives one after shooting Ruby in V1E16.
 * Exposition Party: The Remnant-themed, Risk-like Board Game -- called Remnant: The Game -- played by Team RWBY in V2E2 seems like a subtle way to establish some of the geopolitics of the world.
 * Extraordinarily Empowered Girl: Most if not all of the female cast.
 * Extremely Short Timespan: Volume 3 seems to take place entirely within the space of about a week, maybe less.
 * Eye Cam: We first see Nora through Ren's eyes as he wakes up on the morning of the initiation in V1E4.

F-J
"Pyrrha: Why didn't you activate your aura? Jaune: Huh? Pyrrha: Your aura. Jaune: Gesundheit."
 * Face Fault: Not long after team RWBY meets Penny for the first time in V1E15.
 * Ruby falls over laughing when she sees the logo on Jaune's hoodie for the first time in V4E1.
 * Faceless Masses: In Volume 1, just about anyone who was not involved in the action in some way was simply a black silhouette.  However, starting in Volume 2 the "shadow people" (as the Rooster Teeth staff called them) were gone, replaced with fully-rendered individuals.
 * Face Palm: Pyrrha and Weiss were both given to facepalming in V1-3, usually over something Jaune did.
 * Facial Markings: Penny's partner in V3, Ciel Soleil, has one on her forehead, a small gold circle with tiny pips around it at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock points.
 * Fade to Black: Repeatedly used in V3E7 around the Flash Backs.
 * Fairy Tale Motifs/Mythical Motifs/Historical Motifs: Everywhere you look.
 * For example, besides the obvious fairy tale motifs at play with Team RWBY, there's Team JNPR: Jaune=Joan of Arc, Nora=Thor, Pyrrha=Achilles, and Lie Ren=Mulan (all of whom crossdressed at some point).
 * Fan Art: In Volume 2 fan art was used under the closing credits for each episode.
 * Fan Service: Scattered throughout the show.
 * The hip-swinging walk just about every female character demonstrates at one point or another.
 * Emerald and Cinder's outfits.
 * Fantastic Fighting Style: Each wielder of a custom multiform weapon naturally develops their own style to use it.
 * Fantastic Racism: Towards the Faunus.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Mostly implied.  Vale seems to be more or less Remnant's "America", complete with Melting Pot reputation.  The names of Pyrrha Nikos and Neptune Vasilios (and the city/state Atlas) suggest a pseudo-Greek culture exists or existed elsewhere.  Jaune's name suggests a similar Gallic culture; likewise, Weiss and Zwei's hint at a Germanic area.  How many of these cultures still exist is hard to say, humanity is now surviving in just four heavily-defended enclaves, of which Vale is one; these may well all be cultural melting pots with the original homelands completely overrun by the Grimm.
 * Fantasy World Map: Glimpsed in full during the prologue, lingered upon during World of Remnant 2, and finally seen in-universe during V3; the vicinity of Vale is seen in more detail on Torchwick's map a couple of times during Volume 1.  Monty Oum squirted ketchup into a [[Media:Remnant napkin.jpg|paper napkin]], wadded it up, and then unfolded it to determine the [[Media:RWBY Remnant World Map (Terrain).png|basic landmasses]] of the world.
 * Far East: Anima, the continent on which Mistral is located.  If the towns and territory that Team RNJR has been traveling through in V4 are typical, it's a blend of medieval Chinese fashion, Japanese language ("Kuroyuri", the name of an abandoned town they find, means "Black Lily" in Japanese), and an architecture that seems to be a hybrid of both cultures.
 * Fast-Forward Gag: Briefly implemented in V1E3 when Weiss presents Ruby with the "Dust for Dummies" pamphlet.
 * Feather Flechettes: The Nevermore fires its immense feathers in this manner.
 * Finishing Move: Ruby, in the Food Fight in V2E1.
 * First Boy Wins: It's a bit premature given the planned scope of RWBY, but those fans who don't see Jaune and Pyrrha pairing up argue for Jaune and Ruby partly because of this trope.
 * Flash Back: V3E7 (entitled "Beginning of the End") is almost entirely made up of visual and audio-only flashbacks which each explain some Backstory for the villains.
 * Flight: In V4, Ruby's speed reaches levels that allow her something that's almost true flight (not that her spiraling "bullet charge" -- as seen in V2E1 -- wasn't already nearly there).
 * IN V4E3 both Sun and Blake exhibit unusually long "hang times" that verge on hovers.
 * Flipping the Table: Nora flips over a table full of watermelons during the Food Fight in V2E1.
 * Food Fight: An absolutely epic example in V2E1.
 * Force Field: As Jaune and Pyrrha make clear, one of the effects that Aura can provide.
 * Foreshadowing: Just what is the "big operation in the southeast" to which Torchwick refers during the White Fang meeting in V2E3?  (Revealed in V2E9.)
 * Ruby decapitates a beowolf in the "Red" trailer in exactly the same way she decapitates the Nevermore in V1E8.
 * Fun with Acronyms: Team naming at Beacon (and possibly elsewhere) takes the first initials of the four members of a team and puts them in an order (usually with the team leader's initial first) that can be pronounced as -- or is just similar enough to justify pronunciation as -- a word that is or evokes a color:  RWBY (ruby), JNPR (juniper), NDGO (indigo), CRDL (cardinal) and so on.
 * V4 practically starts with an argument between Ren and Nora about whether they should be Team JNRR ("Junior") or Team RNJR ("Ranger").
 * Funny Background Event: Blake literally climbing the walls of their dorm room to stay away from Zwei when he first appears in V2E12.
 * Funny Bruce Lee Noises: Ruby makes them while describing her (then-newly improved) combat skills in V1E1.
 * Gainaxing: During their commentary track for the Blu-Ray release of Volume 1, the four female stars allege that both Yang and Pyrrha are deliberately animated at times with the infamous "Gainax bounce".
 * In V1E9, Professor Port's stomach is animated with a "Gainax bounce" of its own.
 * Gender Scoff: "Women!", amusingly delivered by Nora after Blake abandons the board game in V2E2.
 * Gesundheit: Jaune, in V1E6:
 * Gesundheit: Jaune, in V1E6:

"Weiss: No. She seems much more coordinated."
 * Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: In V4E12, Nora bitchslaps Ren to stop him from sacrificing himself.
 * The Ghost: Professor Peach of Beacon Academy, at least during V1-V3.
 * Ghost City: Mountain Glenn, to the southeast of the Kingdom of Vale.
 * Gilded Cage: In V4,.
 * Give Me Back My Wallet: Perpetrated several times in V2 by Emerald, particularly to Mercury and Roman Torchwick.
 * Good Scars, Evil Scars: Weiss's surprisingly subtle facial scar -- acquired during the events of the "White" trailer -- is definitely a "good scar".
 * Gosh Dang It to Heck: The bartender at the "Crow Bar" in V3E2.
 * Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: When Jaune leaps out to catch a falling Weiss in V1E8, it becomes a classic Looney Tunes "Oh Crap" pause-and-plunge moment.
 * V1E9: Team JNPR leaning out their dorm room door tumble into the hallway when they realize they're all late for class.
 * V2E5: After Jaune attempts to serenade Weiss, Ruby realizes that she's leaning into frame at an impossible angle and promptly falls over; she stands back up straight for the rest of the scene while Yang, on the other side of the frame, remains at her own impossible angle.
 * Great Offscreen War: The "great war" which took place eighty years before the opening of the show, the details of which still remain maddeningly hazy as of the start of V4.
 * Great White Hunter: Professor Peter Port.
 * Groin Attack: As part of his bullying in V1, Cardin gets one in on Jaune.
 * Earlier, in the "Yellow" trailer, Yang inflicts one on Junior.
 * Nora inflicts one with her hammer upon a member of team BRNZ in V3E2. And in the same episode, a member of Team NDGO inflicts one (just barely offscreen) on Scarlet, using a flaming coconut.
 * Jaune has one inflicted on him when blown into a boulder in V4E1.
 * Guns Do Not Work That Way: Certainly not as part of transforming gadgets which are melee weapons half the time.
 * Averted in the "Yellow" trailer, by Junior: using it as a bludgeon is a great way to break your rocket launcher.
 * Hammerspace: Appears to be either a common technology or a standard Aura effect -- just about everyone demonstrates some variety of storing/retrieving items from thin air or smaller spaces than should be able to hold them.  For instance, when Ruby reloads in the "Red" Trailer, the clip is noticeably bigger than the pouch she pulls it from.  And during V1-V3, Ren noticeably keeps his machine pistols in his sleeves.
 * Hand Wave: Monty Oum's explanation why some names are mispronounced compared to their source languages.
 * Happy Dance: Nora can be seen doing one after retrieving the artifacts but before the battle with the Deathstalker and the Nevermore in V1E8.
 * He's Just Hiding:
 * Heroic BSOD:
 * High School Dance: In V2E6-7.
 * Hologram Projection Imperfection: The projections we see of Glynda Goodwitch in V1, and General Ironwood and the CTC operator AI in V2 all have slightly washed-out color and visible scanning lines. It appears to be a limitation of their technology.
 * Holographic Terminal: Some of the display technology in Remnant seems to work this way.  For instance, see the video game that Qrow, Ruby and Yang are playing in V3E4 -- the screen is just an image floating in midair in front of the dorm room window.
 * In V4, the TV at the Long house projects a free-floating image for its screen.
 * Holy Shit Quotient: The back half of Volume 3 has a very high one indeed.
 * Humongous Mecha: The "Paladin" battlesuit presented in V2E3, several of which were stolen by Torchwick.
 * I Lied: Jaune attempts to serenade Weiss into going with him to the dance in V2; she slams the door in his face and only opens it again when he promises not to sing.  As soon as she does open it, he warbles, "I liiiiiiied!"
 * Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: There's one for almost every pairing, and for ships within Team RWBY they're frequently color-based:  Bumblebee (Blake and Yang), Ladybug (Ruby and Blake), Monochrome (Weiss and Blake), White Rose or Candycane (Weiss and Ruby), Sugar Rush (Ruby and Nora), Freezerburn (Weiss and Yang), Eclipse (Blake and Sun), Arkos (Jaune and Pyrrha) -- just to name a few.  See them all here.
 * Ignored Enemy: Team JNPR does this in the middle of their fight with Team BRNZ during the Vytal Festival tournament when they get caught up in a discussion about names for combat maneuvers.  However, BRNZ is far more determined to continue the fight than most enemies subject to this trope tend to be.
 * Image Song: "Mirror, Mirror" from the "White" trailer and "From Shadows" from the "Black" trailer are very much this for Weiss and Blake respectively.  A snippet of Yang's song "I Burn" finishes up the medley which provides the soundtrack for the "Yellow" trailer, but can be found in its entirety in the V1 soundtrack.  The odd man out is the "Red" trailer; its music is explicitly the theme to the entire series than an image song for Ruby; if any song can be said to be her image song, it is probably "Red Like Roses, Part II", which is played during the climax of the fight with the Nevermore, and is also available as part of the Volume One soundtrack.
 * Image Song Cameo: When Ruby goes all Finishing Move on the other participants in the Food Fight in V2E1, music from her fight with the Beowolves in the "Red" trailer plays.
 * Imagine Spot: Weiss plotting in V1E2 how she and Pyrrha will be an unstoppable team together.
 * Impossibly Cool Clothes: The "too good to be real" aspect of this trope is explicitly averted by the production team:  All characters' costumes are designed with cosplayers in mind and nothing about them relies on impossible physics or materials.  Even so, they still look awesome.
 * In a Single Bound: Not uncommon in Huntsmen and Huntresses -- but taken to truly ludicrous extremes by both Winter Schnee and Qrow in their fight early in V3.
 * Incompletely Trained: Jaune in V1-2, far less so in V3 and afterward.
 * Ruby to a lesser degree -- she's very competent solo, but initially has no idea how to work in a team.
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: Yang lets loose with one in V2E1 and gets ignored; Weiss tries her hand at the end of V2E4 and gets called on it.
 * Neon Katt. Full stop.
 * Individuality Is Illegal: Appears to have been one of the tenets of the unspecified enemy defeated in the "great war" 80 years before the opening of the show.
 * Instant Runes: Weiss and Winter's snowflake-like "glyphs".
 * Also, Glynda and Cinder both demonstrate pseudo-Hermetic designs in V1E1 -- a traditional circle for Glynda, and concentric cylinders for Cinder.
 * Invisibility: In V4, Ren's semblance is revealed to be the ability to briefly grant some kind of undetectability to himself or others.
 * Ironic Echo: Penny's rapid-fire recitation of all the fun things she and Ruby can do together since they are now friends echoes word-for-word Weiss's sarcastic inventory of "girl things" to (not) do with Ruby when they met for the second time at the Beacon opening ceremonies.
 * Ruby picks up on some of this, asking Weiss moments afterwards, "Is this what I was like when we met?"
 * Invisibility: In V4, Ren's semblance is revealed to be the ability to briefly grant some kind of undetectability to himself or others.
 * Ironic Echo: Penny's rapid-fire recitation of all the fun things she and Ruby can do together since they are now friends echoes word-for-word Weiss's sarcastic inventory of "girl things" to (not) do with Ruby when they met for the second time at the Beacon opening ceremonies.
 * Ruby picks up on some of this, asking Weiss moments afterwards, "Is this what I was like when we met?"


 * Interspecies Friendship: Between the faunus students like Blake and Velvet and their human teammates.
 * It's a Long Story: Yang's final line in the "Yellow" Trailer, when Ruby asks her what she's doing at Junior's bar.
 * Also an Incredibly Lame Pun, as it would be a story about Yang Xiao Long, after all.
 * Jittercam: Oddly used in V3E2 to represent Qrow's drunken lack of equilibrium as he leaves a bar -- from an outside POV.

K-O
"Penny: It sure is windy today."
 * Kabuki Sounds: One brief instance after a group cry of "Banzai!" in V1E9.
 * Ki Attacks: One way that Aura can manifest.
 * Land of One City: The four kingdoms of Remnant each appeared to be this through the end of V3, but the "World of Remnant" shorts appearing just before the premiere of V4E1 revealed that the kingdoms just share the names of their capitol cities, and in fact cover quite large amounts of territory, including other cities.
 * Lampshade Hanging: The tumbleweeds blowing by in V1E15.
 * Lampshade Hanging: The tumbleweeds blowing by in V1E15.

"Dog Faunus + Dog Faunus = Dog Faunus, Dog Faunus + Human = Either Dog Faunus or Human Dog Faunus + Cat Faunus = Random Faunus." "Ruby: (addressing the rest of Team RWBY) Sisters! Friends!  Weiss! Weiss:  Hey!"
 * Like Brother and Sister: Although many viewers saw Jaune and Pyrrha shaping up into an Official Couple, the voice actresses on their commentary track for Volume 1 strongly hinted that the two were actually forming a very deep and platonic friendship -- something that turned out not be true, as something clearly forms between them in Volume 3 -- .)
 * Limited Wardrobe: Although through the end of Volume 1 this trope seemed to be in play, with all we'd seen anyone own being just three outfits (combat wear, school uniform, and sleepwear), by halfway through Volume 2 it was being fully averted, with formalwear, alternate battledress and casual wear, and things like Nora's "BOOP" T-shirt.  V4 revealed even more outfits for some of the characters, while at the same time reinforcing the trope for others new and old.  For instance, Qrow and Oscar appear to sleep in their clothes even when not on the road.
 * Little Bit Beastly: Basically what defines faunus.  Different varieties have different "distinguishing features" -- small horns, tiny antlers, tails, and more traditionally pointed ears are common alternatives or additions to the standard "animal ears on top of head" look.  Despite this, they are interfertile with "normal" humans.
 * According to Miles Luna, faunus normally possess a single animal trait (although they all also have keen night vision, if we are to believe Blake and Oobleck). He also acknowledges the possibility of faunus whose only defining animal characteristic is internal.
 * Little Miss Badass: Just about every girl in the cast who isn't a Badass Adorable.
 * Load-Bearing Boss:
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: According to Miles Luna, 56 named characters with speaking roles were in play by the end of Volume 3.
 * MacGuffin: "The Relic", first mentioned by that name in V4E4, is a MacGuffin until we learn more about what makes it important.
 * Machinima: Averted. The animation was produced in Poser for V1-3, and in a dedicated digital animation package starting in V4. Neither is a game, which means RWBY is an All CGI Cartoon, not a Machinima.
 * Magic by Any Other Name: According the the RTX 2013 RWBY panel, Dust.  Not that it's a surprise.
 * However, in V3 Ozpin makes a clear distinction between Dust and the powers of, specifically calling the latter "magic"; in context it's clear that magic is something mythical, and somehow different from the spellcasting-like effects some Dust-wielders (like Weiss in the "White" Trailer) can produce.
 * Magic Genetics: Whatever the hell is going on with Faunus.  According to Word of God (Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross, in this case):
 * Magic Skirt: Implemented almost accidentally in V1-3 as a result of using Poser as the render engine -- any clothing that wasn't a texture applied to a figure (as is painfully obvious with Dr. Oobleck toward the end of V2) was immobile except at the body articulation points.
 * Magical Security Cam: Several instances of footage reused as cam views.  Possibly justified by the (perhaps literal) Magical Computers in use.
 * In V4E3, part of the TV news Yang watches includes the footage of Glynda Goodwitch failing to repair a building from V3E12.
 * Make Me Wanna Shout: The centaur-like Grimm in V4E11-12 has several sonic attacks.
 * Male Gaze: In V4E4, Qrow tracks a pretty waitress's butt as she walks past him (after she very blatantly flirts with him) with a leer on his lips.
 * The Man Behind the Man:
 * The Man in the Mirror Talks Back: One interpretation of what happened with Oscar at the start of V4E4.
 * Mana: Called "Aura", and a known, measurable quality possessed by Huntsmen and Huntresses.
 * Dust appears to be Mana in mineral form.
 * Mana Meter: Actually present In-Universe -- every student at Beacon can check their aura level with their "scroll" (a handheld computer/phone/PDA), and are exhorted to do so when fighting, so they know when to shift to defensive tactics if it gets too low. The aura display appears as a classic colored bar, starting out green, growing shorter as aura is used, and turning red when too much aura has been expended.
 * Mascot: "Pumpkin Pete" of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes, who turns out to be a cartoon rabbit.
 * Meaningful Echo: A non-verbal example:  In the Volume One opening credits, Pyrrha is seen putting a reassuring hand on an uncertain Jaune's shoulder.  In the Volume Two credits, the gesture and emotions are reversed.
 * Meaningful Name: It appears that most of the cast has a name that makes some kind of reference to fairy tales or fantasy/SF literature.  (While at the same time following the Color Motif.)
 * "Remnant" itself. From the very beginning we are repeatedly shown that the four human enclaves are all that remain of a larger civilization destroyed by the Grimm.
 * Mix-and-Match Weapon/Impossibly Cool Weapon: Everybody's got one!  Most combine a firearm of some sort with a melee weapon, and change shape between functions.
 * Sun Wukong goes one better: his weapon is a staff that splits into a pair of nunchaku, which themselves are made out of pairs of pistols (which look like flintlocks, but are multi-shot).
 * Blake's Gambol Shroud can be a used as one or two blades for melee, as a kusarigama/sickle-and-chain, and as a gunblade.
 * Pyrrha's spear/sword/rifle and chakram-shield.
 * Jaune seems to avert this; his sword doesn't appear to turn into anything else, even if it is an Ancestral Weapon. His shield, though, folds for convenient storage, and to become his sword's scabbard.
 * Mood Whiplash: Volume 3 does this for the whole series.
 * Mooks: Torchwick has a small crew of them, and he's not impressed by their quality.
 * Junior's minions in the "Yellow" trailer seem to be the same group -- they have the same black-suit-white-face-and-little-red-sunglasses look. Given that Torchwick is very briefly seen concluding some kind of deal with Junior in the club just before Yang walks up to the bar, it's possible that he acquired his goons from Junior.
 * Confirmed in V2E4; Junior tells Yang that he loaned a group of his men to Torchwick, and that they never came back.
 * Torchwick later is in charge of what seems to be a platoon of.
 * According to Monty Oum at RTX 2014, the beowolves from the "Red" trailer (which were an abandoned early design and thus lack the white armor and spikes possessed by beowolves and all other Grimm in the series proper) are "mook"-level Grimm, and can be slaughtered with relative ease.
 * Motion Capture: Confirmed to have been used for many scenes. However, in V1-3 it's often painfully obvious when it wasn't.  To the surprise of many, motion capture is not used for the fight scenes.
 * Motionless Chin: Averted in the early volumes. In close-ups, chin movements were obvious and clearly synchronized to the Mouth Flaps.  However, with the change in animation software between V3 and V4 the trope's slipped in.
 * Motor Mouth: Ruby, when she gets excited.
 * Nora, all the time.
 * Dr. Oobleck all the time, too, but even more so when he gets excited.
 * Mouth Cam: A variation:  in V3E8, we see part of.
 * Multicultural Alien Planet: By V4 we see that Remnant has a variety of different cultures; not everything looks like early-21st century America.
 * Mundane Utility: Cinder uses her fire powers to pop a single unpopped kernel of popcorn while watching the Vytal Festival tournament in V3.
 * My Friends and Zoidberg: A running gag in V2.  For instance, from V2E1:
 * My Friends and Zoidberg: A running gag in V2.  For instance, from V2E1:


 * My God, What Have I Done?: The look on Emerald's face during the first moments she's seen in V4E1 suggest her thoughts at that moment are something along the lines of "What have I gotten myself into?"
 * My Hero!: Uttered by Weiss in a totally bored and unimpressed manner when Jaune flubs an attempt to flashily rescue her from a fall in V1E8.
 * And again in V4E3 when Sun falls into a Princess Carry by Blake. When the reverse happens in the same fight, Blake does not return the favor (despite being prompted by Sun).
 * Named Weapons: Most if not all of the multiform weapons have names:
 * Ruby named her scythe Crescent Rose.
 * Weiss' sword is Myrtenaster (a old German word for the flower of the myrtle tree).
 * Blake's gunblade/kusarigama is called Gambol Shroud.
 * Yang's "Dual Ranged Shot Gauntlets" are called Ember Celica.
 * Jaune's sword and shield are jointly called Crocea Mors ("Saffron Death" in Latin).
 * Even Torchwick's cane-gun, which is called Melodic Cudgel.
 * Never Trust a Trailer: Deliberately done in the Volume 2 trailer -- the Ruby/Weiss Pietà Plagiarism moment from V2E1 was included, with all the Food Fight elements removed to make it look far more serious than it actually was.
 * Nightmare Sequence: Yang goes through one in V4E4, apparently as a symptom of her post-Beacon PTSD.
 * Ninja: If Blake's book collection is to be believed, they exist somewhere in Remnant.
 * In V3E1, Nora describes Ren as a ninja. Even though he's pseudo-Chinese.
 * "No. Just... No" Reaction: Blake at the end of V2E4 when Weiss tries her hand at a Bond One-Liner after Torchwick and Neo (No, not that one) escape.
 * No Body Left Behind: Grimm corpses "evaporate" shortly after they are killed. Unlike most instances of this trope, this is used to keep the Grimm mysterious. You can't dissect a corpse that doesn't exist.
 * No Endor Holocaust: Averted.  Any battles involving Huntsmen and/or Huntresses do a lot of damage to the surrounding terrain, and even though we don't see them, there are casualties.  Especially toward the ends of V2 and V3.
 * No OSHA Compliance: Team RWBY's improvised bunk beds don't look safe.
 * No Peripheral Vision: Played with in V1E1. The opponent Ruby is fighting seems to have disappeared -- she looks left and right, but still can't find him. Then she looks up...
 * Noodle Incident: Just how did Ruby and Weiss end up clinging to the Nevermore in V1E8?
 * Not Allowed to Grow Up: Averted, according to Word of God.  The intent is that characters will age in real time with the viewers; the example given by Monty Oum is that after ten years of production, 15-year-old Ruby will be 25.  As of V4E1, she's clearly taller and more mature-looking than she was in the previous three volumes.
 * Obligatory Joke: The girls on Team RWBY seem to be consciously choosing to make this a habit.
 * Ocular Gushers: Cascading sheets variant, from both Weiss and Ruby when Yang obliterates them in their Board Game in V2E2.
 * Off with His Head: Ruby decapitates a fair number of the beowolves attacking her in the "Red" trailer.
 * Ruby killing the Nevermore during the Emerald Forest initiation in Volume 1.
 * Jaune killing the ursa in V1E14.
 * Nora declares "Off with their heads!" at the start of Team JNPR's assault in the food fight in V2E1.
 * Off-Model: Much of the animation -- at least some of it done by Motion Capture -- is beautifully fluid and realistic. Other moments... not so much.
 * There's one moment in V1E16 where Blake and Sun are speaking on the street. The shot is looking at Sun more or less over Blake's shoulder and her body is partially obscuring his -- but when he makes a particularly expressive gesture his hand and arm are suddenly, Escher-like, closer to the "camera" than she is.  (This was later corrected for DVD/Blu-Ray and Tugg releases.)
 * V2E6: Before and during the formal dance, we see that the ballroom floor is beautifully polished to a near-mirror and reflects everything -- except for the dancers. Similarly, the floor of the vault in V3 reflects everything but the people walking on it.
 * Official Fan-Submitted Content: When Velvet Scarlatina became more than a one-shot character, her combat outfit was determined by a contest held between V1 and V2.
 * Similarly, Team NDGO from V3 was designed by fans who had won the right to do so on Indiegogo.
 * Offscreen Teleportation: Lampshaded twice with blinking dotted outlines where the teleportees used to be.
 * Only a Flesh Wound: Thoroughly averted, especially in Volume 3.
 * Our Souls Are Different: Called "aura".  When "awakened", they provide the humans of Remnant with a variety of powers.  The Grimm, by contrast, are said to be soulless.
 * Our Souls Are Different: Called "aura".  When "awakened", they provide the humans of Remnant with a variety of powers.  The Grimm, by contrast, are said to be soulless.

P-T
"Weiss: It's not a dress! It's a combat skirt! Ruby: Yeah! [hand slap]"
 * Painting the Medium: V4E1, where Ren and Nora manifest the team names "RNJR" and "JNRR" respectively as letters in the distinctive "RWBY" font floating in the air next to them.  This not just a convenient device for the sake of the audience -- a change in camera angle allows us the see the back of Ren's letters.
 * Panty Shot: Actively averted in V1-3, where Weiss and Ruby in particular have so many petticoats and crinolines under their "combat skirts" that even a direct upskirt angle (as seen with Weiss on her bedroll in Mountain Glenn at the end of V2) shows an almost-solid surface from which their legs sprout.  With the change in graphics engine in V4, though, this may change.
 * V4E12 actually gives us a brief panty shot for Nora as she and Ren sit on the edge of the Atlesian airship; and Ren gets one during their fight against the centaur-like Grimm in the same episode.
 * Parasol Parachute: Subverted in V3E10, when Ruby uses Neo's umbrella against her by popping it open in a high wind and getting her blown off of an Atlesian battleship.
 * Periphery Demographic: RWBY acquired a much younger audience segment than the production team anticipated, resulting in a lot of concern about the effect of V3's tone shift.
 * Personality Powers: The Beacon students all appear to have gifts or talents, and most of the ones we've seen seem to be reflective of their owners' personalities:  Ruby's speed, Yang's fire, and Pyrrha's magnetism, for example.
 * Blake explicitly invokes this when describing how her semblance reflects how she views herself early in V2.
 * Pie in the Face: Weiss takes a classic cream pie right in the kisser at the start of the Food Fight in V2E1.
 * Pietà Plagiarism: Ruby holding a stunned Weiss during the Food Fight in V2E1, complete with a Big No.
 * Planar Shockwave:
 * POV Cam: V4E4, of Taiyang from Yang's perspective.
 * Power Strain Blackout: Ruby, after the events at the top of Beacon tower in V3E12, after which she is Asleep for Days.
 * The Pratfall: Nora drops right on her butt after the proto-Team JNPR defeats the deathstalker in V1E8.
 * This also happens to Reese Chloris of Team ABRN in the first minutes of their team fight during the Vytal Tournament in V3E1.
 * Oscar falls on his butt when he in V4E4.
 * Professor Port takes one as well in V4E4, while recounting an embarrassing story about Qrow.
 * Punctuated! For! Emphasis!/Punctuated Pounding: Yang bellowing "I! Hope! You're! Hungry!" as she fires Ember Celica -- one shot with each word -- right down the Nevermore's throat in V1E8.
 * Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Utterly averted by Ruby and Weiss, even if they get picky about terminology:

"Torchwick: Ladies. Ice Queen. Weiss: Hey!"
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Given to Yang by Taiyang in V4, when trying to teach her how to fight better.  In it, he compares her semblance and how she uses it to throwing a tantrum in order to win a fight.
 * Reckless Gun Usage: The Vale police investigating the dust shop robbery near the end of Volume 1. (Lampshaded by Torchwick's map which notes there are "dumb cops" in that part of Vale.)
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning:
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The King Taijitu, a monstrous two-headed duotone snake fought by Lie Ren in the Emerald Forest.
 * Retcon: In the earliest materials, the planet on which the story is set was called "Vytal", but during the course of production the creative team renamed it to "Remnant".  "Vytal" remains as the name of the festival that is impending at the end of Volume 1 and all the way through Volume 2.
 * Roboteching: In V4, Nora's grenades start demonstrating this behavior.
 * Rule of Cool: Appears to be a law of nature.
 * Rule of Funny: Yang's Berserk Button:  she's a cool, laid-back girl -- unless you muss her hair.
 * Running Gag:
 * Volume 1:
 * Jaune getting stuck in trees.
 * Weiss falling over when she runs into someone she wasn't expecting to be in her way.
 * Volume 2:
 * Weiss suffering from My Friends and Zoidberg every time someone addresses the group as a whole:

"Yang: Some girl's in trouble!"
 * Schedule Fanatic: Penny's minder Ciel Soleil in Volume 3 appears to be this. When Penny asks idiomatically for "a minute" to speak with Ruby, Ciel literally times her and permits only 60 seconds of conversation.
 * Schmuck Bait: Yang's offer to Junior to "kiss and make up" in the Yellow trailer.
 * Screams Like a Little Girl: Jaune in V1E7 when he discovers that the "artifact" he's found is really a Deathstalker.

":1. Characters in RWBY must be:
 * Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Torchwick's primary tactic for ensuring his personal survival.
 * Also, this is basically Neo's reaction to Raven's appearance in V2E11 -- she takes one look at Raven and immediately teleports out.
 * Sea Monster: A sea-dragon-like Grimm appears in V4E3.
 * Secret Path:.
 * Serenade Your Lover: Jaune tries this in V2 as a way to ask Weiss to the dance.
 * Serial Escalation: The back half of Volume 3.
 * Serkis Folk: Motion capture of the voice performers is used for a lot of the animation; pretty much anything that doesn't look odd or awkward is motion capture. (Except for combat and dancing, strangely enough.)
 * She's All Grown Up: Appears to happen to Ruby during the Time Skip between the end of V3 and the start of V4, judging by the teaser shown at RTX 2016.
 * Shields Are Useless: Averted by Jaune, whose shield seems pretty awesome even if he doesn't quite realize it.
 * Also averted by Pyrrha, whose shield is rather handy itself. What with also being a chakram and all.
 * Shout-Out: Built on them, and many are rolled into Meaningful Names.  Where can we start?
 * The fairy tale references in and around the girls of Team RWBY: Ruby/Little Red Riding Hood, Weiss/Snow White, Blake/Beauty and The Beast, and Yang/Goldilocks and The Three Bears.
 * It's been suggested that Blake may also reference Puss in Boots. She also has a candelabra that looks like Lumiere during their first night at Beacon.
 * Yang allegedly also references an obscure Grimm fairy tale, "The Golden Bird".
 * The Wizard of Oz references in Professor Ozpin, Glynda Goodwitch, General Ironwood and Qrow.
 * Jaune Arc and his tormentor Cardin Winchester.
 * Sun Wukong
 * Roman Torchwick, whose name has echoes of "roman candle" (which is what his gun-cane looks like in action), and who looks like he just stepped out of A Clockwork Orange.
 * The White Fang.
 * might be a reference to both Pinocchio and Blaz Blue, and possibly to Inspector Gadget.
 * Dr. Bartholomew Oobleck obviously references Dr. Seuss' Bartholomew and the Oobleck.
 * Professor Peter Port is explicitly described in the director's commentary track for volume 1 as "Peter from Peter and The Wolf grown up".
 * The Grimm are an obvious play on the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales.
 * Ruby snaps off three historical-political ones within a couple minutes in episode 1 of volume 2: "Four score and seven minutes ago", "I had a dream", and "I am not a crook" (the latter complete with Nixon's trademark "V" gestures).
 * Torchwick's battle on the highway with team RWBY in V2E4 starts off with a chase scene reminiscent of a similar moment from one of the Transformers films.
 * Zwei (German for "two") is almost certainly a shout-out to Ein ("one") from Cowboy Bebop; both of them are Corgis, although of different breeds.
 * Pyrrha's throwable shield is highly reminiscent of Captain America.
 * Neon Katt is Nyan Cat.
 * Shy Finger-Twiddling: Ruby during the first time she meets Weiss.
 * Shrouded in Myth:
 * Single Phlebotinum Limit: Dust; it seems to be the only thing allowing humans to have a civilization at all in the face of the Grimm.
 * Slow-Motion Pass-By: When Blake and Sun Wukong first see each other.
 * Snot Bubble: Nora while sleeping in the Beacon library, V2E2.
 * Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Clearly in play:  Volume 1 is mostly Mooks and low-level bosses.  Volume 2 begins upping the ante with mid-level boss .  And Volume 3 ends by revealing.
 * Spent Shells Shower: The "Red" trailer ends this way.  Also in the "Yellow" trailer when Yang reloads Ember Celica.
 * Spider Tank: Seen in the "Black" trailer as part of the defenses on the train.
 * Squee: Ruby's reaction to both Goodwitch and Ozpin in V1E1.
 * Stat Meters: Exist in-universe with the "aura bars" displayed on each fighter's scroll, and on the scoreboard of the Vytal Festival Tournament.
 * Stealth Hi Bye: Penny in her V1 appearances, most notably.  Ruby's speed lets her do basically this if she wants.  Other characters manage this when it's funny.
 * Stealth Pun: The crescents on Jaune's shield?  They're arcs.
 * Steampunk: Appears to be the basic design influence behind Mistral and its technology.
 * Stepping Stone Sword: While fighting the Giant Armor in the "White" Trailer, Weiss leaps onto and runs up the Armor's sword to attack it close up.
 * During their fight in V3, Winter Schnee briefly lands on Qrow's blade.
 * The Stinger: The finale to each season has had a Stinger after the final credits.
 * Stock Sound Effects: Construction sounds -- saws, jackhammers, drills, etc. -- in the few seconds it takes them to turn their beds into (dubious) bunkbeds.
 * That Poor Cat during Ruby and Yang's Big Ball of Violence in V1E2.
 * A bowling ball making a strike is layered into the crash made when Ren slides into the tables after slipping on ketchup during the food fight in V2E1.
 * Stuffed Into a Locker: Happens to Jaune twice: Cardin stuffs him in one of the flying lockers and launches it as part of his bullying in V1.  And in an Ironic Echo Pyrrha does the same thing to him in V3E12 to keep him from following her when she goes to confront.
 * Super-Deformed: Ruby in her first moments on the Beacon campus, as well as the images in her "thought bubble" as she races to find a partner in the Emerald Forest.
 * The RWBY Chibi shorts are built entirely around this.
 * Super Speed: Ruby seems to come close; Professor Doctor Oobleck definitely has it.
 * Super Strength:
 * And as revealed in V2E4,.
 * Super Window Jump: Ruby performs one in the V4 teaser shown at RTX 2016.
 * Swiss Army Weapon: Most of the weapons we see in the series. The few exceptions include Jaune's sword (although his shield might count), Ren's pistols (which while combining blades and guns haven't yet shown ability to change shape), and Torchwick's cane-gun.
 * Sword Sparks: Multiple examples when Dust-using weapons are involved.
 * Tabletop Game: In V2E2, the girls of Team RWBY play a Remnant-themed game that seems to be half Magic: The Gathering and half Risk.
 * Talking to the Dead: V3E1 starts with Ruby at her mother's gravesite, updating her on the events of the first two volumes.
 * Theme Naming: All over the place.
 * The most prominent theme within the show is Colourful Theme Naming -- allegedly every character has some kind of color reference in their name, for in-universe political reasons. A few examples:
 * The girls of Team RWBY: "Ruby Rose" is obvious; "Weiss Schnee"="Snow White"; "Blake" is an old English word for "black"; "Yang Xiao Long" is Chinese for "Little Dragon of the Sun", but includes characters which can mean "yellow" or "gold".
 * "Jaune" is French for "yellow".
 * Velvet Scarlatina.
 * Although it's never actually given on-screen, the newscaster on the broadcast seen at the end of V1E1 is, according to Word of God, named Cyril Ian (i.e., "cerulean"). His co-anchor is billed as "Lisa Lavender".
 * In November 2013, Monty Oum tweeted the explicit naming rules for RWBY characters:
 * A color
 * Something that sounds like a color
 * Something that means a color
 * Something that makes you think of a color"


 * Further, if a character is on a team, the first letter of their name must fit into a 4-letter acronym which itself must follow the same rules.
 * Another theme seems to be in play with the names of the various schools that we know of: Signal, Beacon, Sanctum, Haven -- all terms for places of safety or guides to the same.
 * The members of Team JNPR are all named for historical or mythological figures who crossdressed at one point or another. For instance, Achilles tried to duck out on the Trojan war by disguising himself as a woman named "Pyrrha".
 * Across teams, we have the historical theme naming between Jaune Arc and Cardin Winchester. (Henry Beaufort, the Cardinal of Winchester, interrogated and presided over the trial of Joan of Arc.)
 * It's suspected that Jaune's seven sisters may be inspired by the Greek Muses, but by the end of Volume 2 this is merely speculation.

"Beware that the Light is fading; Beware as the Dark returns. This world's unforgiving -- Even brilliant lights will cease to burn. Legends scatter -- Day and night will sever, Hope and peace are lost forever."
 * Theme Song Reveal: The Volume One theme, "This Will Be The Day", was warning about the events of Volume 3 and beyond from the start:

"Are we born to fight and die? Sacrificed for one huge lie? Are we heroes keeping peace? Are we weapons pointed at the enemy So someone else can claim a victory?"
 * The Volume Two theme, "Time To Say Goodbye", is clearly hinting at something -- especially in the bridge which isn't played as part of the opening credits:

"Perry: Boss, we found something! Torchwick: Is it good or bad, Perry? Because let me tell you, I have had a day. Perry: Uh... it's a little girl? [Torchwick looks] Torchwick: That would be bad."
 * And the Volume Three theme, "When It Falls", makes no bones about what's going to happen by the end of that volume.
 * The songs from the four Trailers also are clearly implying things; all of them have turned out to reference events in the girls' lives prior to the start of the series, and save for the "Red" trailer (as of the start of V4 at least), these events have had surprising relevance to the plot as it's unfolded.
 * Theme Tune Cameo: In the first scene of V1E1, Ruby's listening to "This Will Be The Day" on her player, before it's been used as the theme tune for the first time.
 * They Walk Among Us: The Faunus.
 * Thick Line Animation: It's not consistent across all the artwork, but in general the show has this kind of look.  It's especially noticeable with things like the Deathstalker in V1E8, and character faces.
 * With the change in animation software in V4, it's less pronounced, but still there.
 * Thigh-High Boots: Weiss in V2E3.
 * Cinder in V2E7.
 * Blake in V4.
 * This Is Gonna Suck: Torchwick's reaction to Ruby's capture in V2E10:


 * This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Pyrrha to Ruby and Weiss as Jaune faces the ursa in V1E14.
 * Three-Point Landing: Several times throughout the series, most notably Pyrrha after they defeat the deathstalker in V1E8.
 * Throw It In: The animators at Rooster Teeth are encouraged to come up with bits of "business" to add to scenes.  For instance, the sequence where Torchwick silently mocks Emerald and Mercury as Cinder reprimands them in V2E1, ending with a mimed throat-cutting, was the invention of the animator who worked on that scene.  Another created an entire sequence with detailed set for use late in V3 with spare bits of render time here and there during the preceding year.
 * The Crow Bar in V3E2 gained its name from an off-the-cuff name for its model file.
 * The entire Four Maidens subplot was created during Volume 2 by Monty Oum, and added to the pre-existing master plot.
 * Time Skip: V4 opens some six to eight months after the end of V3.
 * Toilet Humour: Ruby's scribbled drawing of Professor Port calling him "Professor Poop" (made in V1E9).
 * Tomboy and Girly Girl: Definitely in play between Ruby (tomboy) and Weiss (girly girl). Appears also to be part of the dynamic between Yang and Blake in V1-3, but they seemed to swap off on who's who as needed.
 * In the early part of V4, Ruby seems to be the Girly Girl to Nora's Tomboy. It's all relative.
 * Too Soon?: Asked by Sun Wukong of Blake in V1E12 after making a snarky comment about.
 * Took a Level In Badass:  in V1E14.
 * Ruby, during the Time Skip between V3 and V4.
 * Tournament Arc: Volume 3 appeared to be one, what with the Vytal Festival Tournament being in full swing as the first episode of the volume begins,.
 * Trailers: Starting November 5, 2012, Rooster Teeth released four trailers, spaced eight to ten weeks apart, which each featured one of the four main characters. Combining beautiful animation, non-stop action, Foreshadowing and awesome music, they were responsible for a remarkable level of anticipation and speculation before the series' premiere in July 2013.
 * A single trailer was produced for Volume 2, using material from the first six or so episodes. Likewise V3 had a single trailer.
 * V4 got a combat sequence between Ruby and a village full of Grimm as a trailer, along with a snippet of the first episode released very shortly before the premiere.
 * Train Job: The "Black" trailer is about one, which becomes a plot point late in Volume 1.
 * Traveling At the Speed of Plot: If Remnant is as large as it seems to be, and Mountain Glenn is as far from Vale as the V4 World of Remnant shorts indicate, then the underground train on which Team RWBY and Dr. Oobleck were riding at the end of V2 could not possibly be moving as slowly as it did and still reach Vale in just ten or fifteen minutes.  It would have to moving so fast that the slipstream would have blown them all off of it.
 * Tuckerization/Ink Suit Actor: Several minor characters in Volume 3 -- among them all of Team NDGO and the bartender at the Crow Bar -- are representations of real people, supporters of the RT film Laserteam on IndieGoGo.
 * Tunnel Network: Under Mountain Glenn.
 * Two-Teacher School: As of the end of Volume 2, the only instructors we have seen actually teaching at Beacon have been Professor Port and Doctor Oobleck, despite the obvious size of the school.  Glynda Goodwitch, although referred to explicitly as "Professor" once, appears to be more of an administrator even though she leads a field trip to Forever Fall in Volume 1, and acts as referee for some kind of sparring or combat training late in Volume 2.  There is mention of a Professor Peach, but she is never seen.

U-Z

 * Uncanny Valley: Averted.  Despite being made with Poser, whose photo-realistic figures live in the Uncanny Valley, RWBY's animation has its detail level dialed back and its abstraction level dialed up to give it a resemblance to traditional animation, and handily escapes the creepiness factor.
 * Unsound Effect: In the subtitles on the YouTube versions.  The season 4 trailer included such effects as *EYES*, *ROCK*, and *WOOSHY WOOSHY ROSES*.
 * Vestigial Empire: We are told explicitly by the unknown narrator that all four modern civilizations are this.  Which is why the world is called "Remnant".
 * Victory Dance: Sun and Neptune perform one after they defeat team NDGO in V3.
 * Vomit Discretion Shot: Jaune, off-screen at the end of V1E1, and onscreen into a trash can at the start of V1E2.
 * Waking Non Sequitur:
 * Nora blurting "Pancake!" upon being awakened, V2E2.
 * Jaune blurting "Waffles!" upon being awakened by Ruby's phone call in V2E12.
 * Walk and Talk: The scene in V3 where Pyrrha is brought down to the vault under Beacon and has matters explained to her as they walk down the long, torchlit gallery.
 * Wave Motion Gun:
 * To a lesser degree, Coco's man-portable minigun.
 * Web Animation
 * Weird Moon: A moon in pieces certainly counts.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremists: The modern incarnation of the White Fang, but there are hints that they are being manipulated for some sinister purpose.
 * Western Terrorists: The current version of the White Fang is somewhere between Type VII and Type VIII.  They started out as a non-violent Civil Rights Movement for Faunus, but there was a change in leadership about five years before the start of the series, and their methods turned violent.  There are hints that they are being manipulated by someone else for more sinister purposes.
 * What Happened to the Rapier Wasps?: Someone should have gotten stung in V1E14, but they basically vanished.
 * Wham! Episode:
 * Volume 3, Episode 6, "Fall".
 * Volume 3, Episode 9, "PvP".
 * Volume 3, Episode 12, "The End of the Beginning"
 * When the Clock Strikes Twelve: In a Mythology Gag for Cinder, she's informed in V2E6 that she has to get back to the ball by midnight.
 * Wholesome Crossdresser: According to a story told by Port and Taiyang in V4E4, Qrow (as a student) was tricked into wearing a skirt in public.
 * The Wiki Rule: A dedicated wiki exists for the show, containing a surprisingly vast amount of detail gathered from a wide variety of sources.
 * A Wild Rapper Appears: In the full version of "I Burn" from the "Yellow" Trailer/Volume 1 and "Caffeine" from Volume 2.
 * Will They or Won't They?
 * Word of Dante: The Manga version of RWBY published in Japan.  According to Grey Haddock, "it's not not canon".  Rooster Teeth is making sure nothing in it contradicts the series.
 * World of Action Girls: Most of the females with a name are very capable fighters.
 * Writers Have No Sense of Scale: If they even thought about it, most viewers assumed the map of Vale that Torchwick had pinned to a wall of his warehouse in V1 was of a reasonably-sized city and its outlying districts.  However, the World of Remnant shorts released immediately prior to Volume 4 revealed that this was in fact an area that must be at least the size of Texas, if Remnant is anything close to the same size as Earth.  The Kingdom of Vale was even explicitly shown to include several more unnamed cities hundreds of miles away down the coast to the southwest, along with the ruins of Mountain Glenn to the southeast.  The three other kingdoms appear to be the same size as Vale, and all have multiple settlements.  And then there's Menagerie, the Faunus nation, itself the size of one of the human kingdoms.  These are the tiny, protected enclaves supporting the last remaining populations of non-Grimm, fighting desperately for survival?  By any decent measure their population must number in the tens of millions if not the hundreds of million, and they're occupying a combined "protected, safe" space at least the size of Europe.  With those kinds of numbers, it's hard to see humanity as terribly threatened.
 * Wutai: The Chinese-flavored towns and villages that Team RNJR encounters in V4.   Oddly, their inhabitants aren't ethnically Asian, but everything else about the places is.
 * You Can't Thwart Stage One:
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: The only character in Volume 1 with an obviously "unnatural" hair color is Professor Oobleck, who has green hair.
 * Lie Ren has a magenta stripe through the hair on the left side of his face, but it could simply be dyed.
 * Several characters who make their first appearances in Volume 2 have "unnatural" hair colors, including Neapolitan, Emerald Sustrai and Neptune Vasilios. More show up in V3.
 * You Monster!: When an ursa presses Yang's Berserk Button by slicing a single strand of her hair from her head in V1E7, she screams "You monster!" at it before literally exploding into flame and then pummeling it to death.
 * Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: What the current version of White Fang thinks of itself, of course.
 * Zettai Ryouiki: Blake's stockings in her battle garb; Yang's stockings in her school uniform.  Both are Rank A.
 * Weiss's "casual wear" revealed in V2E3 has her rocking Rank A stockings and Thigh-High Boots.
 * Weiss's "casual wear" revealed in V2E3 has her rocking Rank A stockings and Thigh-High Boots.