Openai/69178dec-5630-8002-a438-570506d7f194

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gpt-5-1

User: Explain how jaune traveling back in time in rwby wasn't predestined.

Explain how jaune traveling back in time in rwby wasn't predestined. Prove the picture false if you can objectively

Assistant: Here’s the clean, objective, lore-accurate breakdown showing why the meme’s claim is false and why Jaune’s time travel …

Here’s the clean, objective, lore-accurate breakdown showing why the meme’s claim is false and why Jaune’s time travel in RWBY is NOT predestined—based on how RWBY’s cosmology, Ever After metaphysics, and the Curious Cat’s nature actually work.

RWBY’s worldbuilding explicitly rejects a deterministic universe. The show repeatedly reinforces free will, choice, and multiple possible outcomes:

Their entire “experiment” with humanity is based on whether humans choose to destroy themselves or rise above their flaws.

A deterministic universe would make that experiment nonsensical.

The Gods’ test only works if:

• choices are real
• outcomes can differ
• humans have agency

So the world cannot be a fixed timeline.

The meme assumes “Jaune was always Rusted Knight, therefore the timeline is fixed.”

But RWBY never states that.

The Ever After is not part of Remnant’s linear causality.

Even the Curious Cat states that:

• Time doesn’t flow the same
• Identities can be rewritten
• Events can be altered by choice
• You "become" things through narrative transformation

The Ever After is a metaphysical narrative space, not a closed causal loop.

Nothing requires Jaune to have always been the Rusted Knight. He only becomes the Rusted Knight because of events triggered by the fall into the After—not because the timeline demands it.

Characters in the Ever After take on roles based on:

• emotional states
• identity crises
• choices
• vulnerability
• psychological imprint

Jaune becomes the Rusted Knight because:

• He felt guilt and failure
• He wanted desperately to protect someone
• He was isolated
• The Cat manipulated him
• His mind fractured under time dilation

This is emergent, not predetermined.

Nothing in RWBY suggests these emotional conditions were “required” for the Ever After narrative to exist beforehand.

The Red Prince, Alyx, Jinxy, the Cat, and the Blacksmith all confirm that the Ever After changes based on who arrives.

Meaning:

• If different people fell in, the stories would reshape around them
• Jaune didn’t “fit into a predestined story,” the story reshaped around him

The Ever After is reactive, not fixed.

A true predestination paradox requires:

• A future event causing its own past
• A stable time loop
• Information or actions flowing backward to enforce the loop

But in RWBY:

• Jaune NEVER interacts with Remnant’s past
• His actions in the Ever After do NOT alter or cause Remnant events
• The Rusted Knight story is Afteran, not Remnant history

There is no closed loop. There is no past predestination on Remnant’s timeline.

RWBY fairy tales are:

• Allegorized
• Metaphorical
• Partially fictional
• Rewritten through generations

Jaune didn’t “already exist” in the story.

The story changed because the Ever After experiences became a fairy tale over time. The Ever After influences storytellers—NOT the other way around.

RWBY treats fairy tales like mythic retellings, not prophetic history.

The meme claims free will is fake → gods' test is pointless.

But since Jaune:

• Did not influence Remnant’s past
• Did not create a stable loop
• Did not lock events in place

…then nothing about free will is violated.

Everyone still made choices independently:

• Ruby chose her path
• Alyx chose to betray
• Jaune chose to stay
• The Cat chose to manipulate
• The team chose to leave
• The gods chose to leave humanity

No event becomes “forced” by Jaune’s presence in the After.

The meme commits several logical errors:

Comparing:

• A same-timeline causal loop (not in RWBY) with
• A cross-dimensional narrative transformation (RWBY Ever After)

They are not the same thing.

“Jaune is in a fairy tale → free will doesn’t exist”

This conclusion does not follow from the premise.

Jaune time traveling does NOT prove predestination.

It does NOT break RWBY’s cosmology.

It does NOT make the gods’ motivations pointless.

Because:

• Jaune does not time-travel within Remnant’s timeline
• The Ever After does not rewrite history
• No closed loop exists
• No event on Remnant is caused by Jaune’s future self
• The narrative reacts to Jaune, not vice-versa
• The gods’ test of free will remains valid

The meme mistakes a magical narrative dimension for a deterministic timeline.

RWBY’s story structure is branching-choice-driven, not predestined.

If you want, I can also give you:

🔥 A concise debunk version for posting on r/RWBYCritics 🔥 A point-by-point rebuttal meme 🔥 A lore-sourced breakdown with direct quotes from Vol. 9

Just tell me.

gpt-5-1-thinking

User: Number 6 isn't the point though but give me better reasons

Number 6 isn't the point though but give me better reasons

Assistant: Gotcha, let’s throw out the “the book is just a story” angle and hit this from pure causality + logic instead.

Gotcha, let’s throw out the “the book is just a story” angle and hit this from pure causality + logic instead.

I’ll give you a tighter set of reasons you can actually use in a debate.

1. Jaune never alters Remnant’s past → no fixed timeline

For predestination to be proven, you need a closed loop:

future event → causes past event → guarantees its own future

That never happens.

• Jaune falls into the Ever After after Atlas.
• He is only “back in time” relative to Team RWBY because the Ever After has different time flow, not because he enters Remnant’s past.
• At no point does Jaune’s existence as the Rusted Knight: - change events on Remnant, - cause Ozpin’s plan, - cause the gods’ actions, or - force any earlier character choice.

So even if he later becomes a fairy-tale figure, that’s information about his future, not a mechanism that locks his past.

Key point: A guy aging in a pocket dimension where time runs faster is not predestination. It’s just asymmetric time.

2. The chain that leads to Jaune becoming the Rusted Knight is contingent, not necessary

A predestined outcome would require the story to imply “this had to happen.”

Look at the chain instead:

1. Cinder attacks the vault the way she does.
2. Ambrosius’ door behaves the way it does.
3. RWBY + Neo fall at that exact moment in that exact way.
4. Jaune jumps after Ruby and Neo.
5. The Ever After chooses to process Jaune’s guilt and trauma in a specific way.
6. Jaune decides, over years, to keep fighting, protecting, and rescuing people instead of giving up.

At every step, there are clear alternatives:

• Cinder could have done literally anything else.
• Jaune could have stayed behind.
• The Ever After could have “re-cast” him differently (the way it does with other people).
• Jaune could have broken, gone catatonic, or become something hostile.

The text never says “this outcome was inevitable.” It shows a messy, contingent line of decisions and accidents that just happens to end with “Rusted Knight.”

Predestination needs necessity. RWBY only gives you contingency.

3. Knowledge about an event ≠ causation or loss of free will

Even if you grant the critics’ strongest version:

“The Rusted Knight story already existed before Jaune fell, and it’s literally about him.”

That still does not prove:

• that Jaune was forced to make those choices, or
• that the universe is predetermined.

Why?

• Jaune never reads the story before living it.
• No one uses the story to manipulate his decisions.
• The story doesn’t reach back in time to cause anything; it’s just information.

Prophecies / foreknowledge are logically compatible with free will unless:

• the characters are aware of them and
• the universe actively prevents deviation.

RWBY never shows “attempt to change the story → reality snaps back.” Nothing indicates the cosmos enforcing the book.

So at worst, you have retroactive narrative symmetry, not “everything is scripted.”

4. Jaune’s identity as Rusted Knight is a response to his choices and mental state

The Ever After literally reshapes people according to:

• their desires
• their guilt
• their emotional trajectory

Jaune becomes the Rusted Knight because he:

• clings to protecting others,
• refuses to stop “saving” people,
• internalizes his failure with Penny and Pyrrha,
• can’t move on, so his entire existence gets stuck in “knight trying to fix it.”

That is character-driven transformation, not fate.

If his internal choices had been different (accepting loss, walking away, etc.), his “role” would have changed. The Ever After is reactive, not an author writing a script in advance.

5. The gods’ test is about human moral development, not about the exact sequence of later events

The meme jumps from:

“Jaune ends up in a fairy tale”

→ “Therefore everything was predestined from the start”

→ “Therefore the gods’ experiment is pointless.”

Huge leap.

The gods’ experiment boils down to:

• Can humanity as a whole choose to become better than its worst impulses?

Nothing about Jaune’s later Ever After detour:

• forces Salem to rebel,
• forces Ozma’s choices, or
• forces humanity’s destruction and reset.

Even if Jaune’s arc had been wholly scripted, that would only say something about his path, not about the entire species’ moral freedom in the gods’ experiment.

So the meme’s last step (“gods’ motivation pointless”) is a straight non sequitur.

Compact rebuttal you can post

If you want a short, sharp version:

Jaune isn’t “proving predestination.” He never goes into Remnant’s past, never causes earlier events, and never creates a closed time loop. He just falls into a dimension where time flows differently and, after years of contingent choices and trauma, becomes the Rusted Knight. The Ever After reacts to people; it doesn’t script them in advance. Even if a story about the Rusted Knight existed earlier, foreknowledge ≠ causation, and no one uses that story to force Jaune’s actions. Nothing about his arc removes free will or invalidates the gods’ test of humanity. The meme is treating “cool narrative symmetry” like hard proof of a deterministic universe, which just doesn’t follow.

If you’d like, I can tune that into a 1–2 sentence clapback specifically tailored for r/RWBYcritics’ tone.