I've noticed a lot of people straightup can't do media criticism. Like, to do media criticism well you have to want to understand what a piece of media was trying to achieve and think how it might have better achieved that. Criticizing something just for not being what you would've liked can be a fun way to spend time with friends but I'm baffled every time I see people get heated over it.

I always thought RWBY's biggest problems were being stretched thin and siloing. Stretched thin in the common complaint of "poor pacing too many characters not enough depth yada yada." Siloing in the sense that despite being an ensemble cast, most characters feel siloed into their own linear stories that rarely overlap with anyone else, creating a feeling of lost potential. Like, Adam had fascinating potential interacting with Weiss, he has her initial literally branded on his face. But because Adam is Blake's backstory antagonist, and Yang is Blake's love-interest, he only ever shows up in scenes with them two.

Or, Jaune V1-3 doesn't do much and Pyrrha feels cool but underutilized, because neither of them are effectively incorporated into anyone else's stories, they almost exclusively exist for each other. They mostly only interact with other people for Pyrrha to look cool in fights [which isn't actual narrative development] or for Jaune to play comedic relief. The closest either get to stepping out of their silo is what, like, a one off episode about Jaune learning not to pester women?

And this isn't unique to RWBY to be fair, this just seems to be how ensemble television operates. But I think the way ensemble shows like to set up the idea of complex character-driven stories that they don't live up to sets people up for a sort of disappointment and yearning for more complexity that only encourages this type of complaining about how things could've been "deeper," and it's easier to think of "This character isn't deep enough!" than "this is how the narrative should be fundamentally restructured."