Old Theory, New Context: Qrow is Ruby’s Dad

Personally, I’m generally somewhat neutral on the whole ‘Qrow is Ruby’s Dad’ theory. When it first cropped up back in Volume 3, I was all over it, but since then I mellowed out on it quite a bit. While I still thought it was an interesting idea, it sort of fell away. Particularly as there wasn’t any real development on this front in the show itself, and any fandom discussions were little more than broad speculation and headcanoning.

Ultimately, I decided that I wouldn’t discuss this theory until some new developments came up in the show itself that were worth discussing.

And as it turns out, this Volume has given us some very interesting developments worth talking about concerning Ruby’s and Qrow’s relationship.

The fact is, despite no direct foreshadowing or discussion of the topic, Ruby’s and Qrow’s entire dynamic this volume has been framed very strongly as a Father-Daughter relationship. Regardless of any reveals/developments to come, I think it’s pretty undeniable at this point that Qrow fills a father-figure role to Ruby.

Specifically, a relationship where the father has a substance-abuse problem and the daughter has to take charge. We see this dynamic all over the place this volume. From Qrow’s alcoholism finally being framed as a PROBLEM, to Ruby’s acknowledgement, concern and anger over this problem.

Hell, we even get significant parallels being drawn between Ruby’s experiences with Qrow’s alcoholism and Weiss’s own experiences with her alcoholic mother.

And after Qrow finally snaps out of his pit of depression and actually starts helping again, what do we get but a classic ‘accepting that your kid is growing up’ moment between him and Ruby.

I know by this point we’ve all basically conditioned ourselves to immediately interpret scenes like this as ‘Ruby does something that reminds Qrow of Summer’, but let’s take a step back for a moment and look at this more generally.

This scene is totally a ‘your little girl is all grown up’ moment. From Ruby telling Qrow (telling, mind you. Not asking permission) that he needs to trust her, to the look on growing wonder on Qrow’s face during Ruby’s triumphant moment soon after, to this quite frankly BRILLIANT bit of ‘I don’t need you to hold my hand anymore’ visual symbolism.

(Note that it’s not just Qrow letting go, Ruby also pulls away at the same time)

Oh, and if all that was too subtle, CRWBY just threw in a ‘they grow up so fact’ line from Qrow.

But that’s not all we got this Volume. We also got some very interesting narrative parallels going on too.

Looking at the times this Volume where Ruby has called out Qrow on his problems and the ideological conflict between these two, did anyone else get a feeling that all this was kinda familiar?

Specifically, very similar to what was happening with Yang and Raven?

The conflict between Ruby and Qrow this volume paints some rather striking parallels to the conflict between Yang and Raven in Volume 5. A parental/parent-like figure with a lot of problems and issues talking down to their daughter/daughter-figure, calling their dreams and aspirations naive and foolish and saying that it’s stupid for them to carry on, only for those daughters to push back hard, calling those adults out on their bullshit and bad parenting, leaving those adults ashamed at their failures. True, Ruby’s calling out of Qrow might not have been quite as brutal as Yang calling out Raven, but the underlying message is the same.

And speaking of parallels, remember Yang’s recounting of how her father ‘shut down’ after Summer’s death, leaving Yang to basically raise Ruby as a mother?

“My mom left me. Ruby’s mom left too. Tai was always busy with school and Ruby couldn’t even talk yet. I had to pick of the pieces. I had to keep things together. Alone.”

Now let’s look at Ruby’s and Qrow’s dynamic for much of Volume 6: A horrible, life-changing event happens, causing a father-figure to shut down and dive headlong into a spiral of depression, and because he’s basically checked-out completely, his daughter is forced to step up and take up his duties herself. Sound familiar?

Whether it’s Yang having to take up the role of Parent for Ruby, or Ruby having to take up the role of Leader for her team, there are some undeniably strong parallels here.

Not only that, but Qrow being Ruby’s father paints yet more parallels and foils between Qrow and Raven. Both abandoned their daughters, but in opposite ways: Qrow refuses to acknowledge himself as Ruby’s parent, but still acts as a parent, while Raven acknowledges herself as Yang’s parent, but refuses to act as an actual parent.

Second, and more broadly, I recently realized that every other member of Team RWBY has had to deal with some kind of conflict and a very complicated relationship with a parent(s):

Yang has to deal with an absent/abandoning mother. 

Blake has to deal with reconnecting with the parents she’s become very estranged from. 

And Weiss has to deal with a controlling and outright abusive father.

The only outlier here is Ruby, and No, having a dead mother doesn’t count. That isn’t a conflict. Summer is simply gone, there’s no conflict to be had there.

But with Qrow in the mix, the conflict is quite clear: Ruby has to deal with an alcoholic father who’s too ashamed of his own existence to even admit that he is her father.

I realize this isn’t quite the kind of ‘smoking gun’ evidence that these claims are generally built on, but the fact is Volume 6 has pushed super hard on presenting Ruby and Qrow as Daughter and Father. From all the framing of Qrow as a father-figure to Ruby, the framing of Ruby as a grown-up-daughter to Qrow, the strong parallels between the ideological conflict between Ruby and Qrow to the one between Yang and Raven last volume, not to mention the parallels with Tai, and how Ruby having to deal with an alcoholic Qrow neatly rounds out the running theme of Team RWBY having complicated relationships and problems with parents.

These are all very deliberate writing choices made by Miles, Kerry and the rest of CRWBY. They want us the audience to see Qrow as a father to Ruby. I can’t say how this will all shake out, but I am convinced that CRWBY are building to some kind of big reveal.

Oh, and to all those who will doubtlessly chime in with a butcher’s bill of reasons why Qrow being Ruby’s father is ‘Problematic’:

What part of ‘COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP AND PROBLEMS WITH A PARENT’ did you miss?