I Think It's Pretty Obvious That The Reason Raven Is Such A Train Wreck Till This Day Is Because Of Her

I think it's pretty obvious that the Reason Raven is such a train wreck till this day is because of her own fear of Salem and how she realizes she isn't immortal nor is she as fearless as she thought, especially since she now has something Salem wants, the Maiden Powers. There is no doubt that Tai is Ruby's father, Because when Raven confronted her in Volume 5, the line you spoke of once, "You sound just like her." Was definitely filled with disgust and resentment. Probably because whatever happened to Summer, Raven tried to talk her out of it, but her Relentless optimism is what got her "killed."(IF she was killed 👀)

Also, In the scene we got in V9 it's clear that Tai and Summer were definitely together in a loving relationship. There is no doubt about it. But this was an interesting post to read through.

"Likely cared about her the most out of her teammates. Given how she’s clearly taken Summer’s loss far harder than Qrow or Tai." Its literally been a major plot point since V2 then Summer's disappearance caused Tai to completely shut down for actual years. Straight from Yang. How can you possibly ignore that to make a claim that Raven cared more? I know your a Rosebird truther to the extreme, but come on your ignoring the words of characters who actually were there

So this is a great example of what I’ve been saying about how much of the fandom’s idea of the background of Team STRQ is based on some major assumptions. And many of them drawn from sources that are not entirely reliable.

To the point, IS Tai ‘shutting down’ after Summer’s disappearance really a major recurring plot point? It’s only been brought up twice in any kind of significant way, and more notably is something we’ve only ever heard about and never actually SEEN. Now that’s not to say that Yang has been lying or somehow wrong about Taiyang’s grief, rather that the only place we have actually seen that grief is through the effect it had on Yang and Ruby. Whereas we have thus far seen basically nothing of that grief from Tai himself. Seeing as how we have never seen him so much as speak of Summer, outside that one episode of Fairy Tales of Remnant that only had an inference of his grief. Simply put, the narrative of RWBY has treated Taiyang’s apparent grief-stricken breakdown as a key aspect of Yang’s backstory and character development, rather than part of Tai’s own character.

And more to your point: How can I claim that Raven cared more about Summer and took her disappearance harder that Tai?

Simple. Just note the past tense in ‘Tai completely shut down for years.’

Regardless of how hard Tai apparently took Summer’s disappearance in the past, when we look at him in the present, it’s clear that he has been able to heal and move past that grief and overall looks to be in a pretty good place now.

Contrast that with Raven who is clearly still wracked with grief and trauma over whatever happened during that mission and whatever happened to Summer.

Reading between the lines, the show has made it pretty clear which among Team STRQ took Summer’s disappearance the hardest: On the one hand we have Qrow and Tai, who after all these years, seem to have coped with their grief fairly well, all things considered. And on the other hand we have Raven, who is clearly still a complete fucking wreck.

What I think much of the fandom is missing is that there is a slowly growing disconnect between what we heard about Team STRQ’s backstory and what we are actually SEEING play out.

Back in Volume 2, we took everything Yang told Blake at face value and assumed that she actually knew everything she was talking about and was right about everything.

When in reality it’s becoming more and more clear that there is a LOT about her parents’ team that Yang, and by extension Ruby, have had NO IDEA about.

With how consistently RWBY has utilized the ‘unreliable narrator’ trope, especially when it comes to our heroines’ parents and mentors, when it comes to formulating theories, more and more I’ve taken to putting MUCH more stock in what we SEE of our characters over what we might simply ‘hear’ about them. Especially when it comes to characters as shrouded in mystery as Team STRQ, and particularly after what we saw in the Volume 9 finale which flat out TOLD Ruby ‘there’s a BUNCH about your family that you have been completely wrong about’.

It’s not that I think Summer didn’t care about Tai and Qrow, or that she and Tai weren’t very close. Ruby’s vision from the Tree proved that pretty conclusively. Nor do I think Tai isn’t or hasn’t been a loving, caring father to both Yang and Ruby. Again, the story has shown that quite definitively.

Rather, I think there is a LOT more going on with Ruby’s and Yang’s parents than we realize. And that a LOT of what we have assumed base on what characters told us in the show’s early volumes is going to turn out to be either VERY incomplete or even outright wrong.

Like when the story has told and shown us basically nothing of Summer’s relationship with Tai, while at the same time leaving more and more narrative breadcrumbs about Summer’s relationship with Raven, or in the case of the V9 finale, clubbing us upside the head with a wholeass baguette, it gives more and more of an impression that THIS is the relationship of most narrative significance and consequence among the team. And that some things both we and Yang and Ruby assumed were not actually the case. Say for example, Tai not actually being Ruby's biological father...