RWBY/Trivia

• Author Existence Failure/Outlived Its Creator: Creator Monty Oum's death from a freak allergic reaction in February 2015 had many fans worried for the future of RWBY. Given that Rooster Teeth is far from a one-man operation, though, there really was little to fear. (In fact, the cashstream provided by RWBY and its spin-offs have allowed Rooster Teeth to greatly expand their animation department and move to new, larger quarters as of 2017.)
• Continuity Errors: Surprisingly few and far between.
  • V4E12 has a very brief one when Nora and Ren are hiding under a building. Her hammer is still in the street outside, but for one short sequence she's rendered with it visible on her back.
• Defictionalization: Inverted. All the characters' outfits are designed with cosplayers in mind. The designs are practical and are based around clothing items that can be found in the real world.
• Development Gag: The composter being cranked by Oscar the farm boy in V4E1 has a golden crown logo with "CK" on it -- an obvious reference to the "Compost King" game Jaune owns in RWBY Chibi.
• Fan Nickname:
  • This show has attracted shippers out the wazoo. Here're just a few of the names given various pairings over the first couple volumes:
    • White Rose (Ruby/Weiss)
    • Bumblebee (Blake/Yang)
    • Monochrome (Weiss/Blake)
    • Ladybug (Ruby/Blake)
    • Freezer Burn (Weiss/Yang)
    • Arkos (Jaune/Pyrrha)
    • Love and War (Pyrrha/Nora)
    • Jarem (Jaune/female harem)
    • There exists on the web a massive spreadsheet of all possible RWBY pairings, with a name for each.
  • Then there's "Druncle Qrow"...
  • The "Ozluminati" for the organization Ozpin runs/used to run...
• Hey, It's That Voice!:
  • Cortana gives the opening narration and turns out to be the Biggest Bad.
  • Akabane Kuroudo runs a battle school.
  • Sanosuke Sagara is running a criminal operation.
  • Monty Oum voiced Lie Ren for the first two volumes.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Daft Punk turn out to be the DJs for the dance in V2E6-7.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Monty Oum's brother Neath taking on the role of Ren after his death.
  • Jason Liebrecht took over the role of Qrow from Vic Mignogna with the start of Volume 7.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Well represented among the various ship names, including "Arkos" and "Jarem", as noted above.
• Production Nickname: On the V4 DVD's Directors' commentary track, Gray Haddock in particular refers to the Nuckelavee as "Knuckles".
  • And then there is the in-house name for Salem's lieutenants: Team WTCH: Watts, Tyrian, Cinder, and Hazel.
  • The animators took to calling the Lancers from V5 "spooky bees".
  • Likewise, the slightly grubby Weiss from early-mid V5 was known as "Dirty Weiss" from the filename for the model.
  • "Smirkury"
• 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, Qrow and a few other characters.
  • Jaune Arc and his V1 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 references Romeo Lampwick from Pinocchio, and who looks like he just stepped out of A Clockwork Orange.
  • The White Fang.
  • Penny is based on Pinocchio and might also be a reference to BlazBlue and possibly 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". A story he tells of his youth during one of his first appearances is, in fact Peter and The Wolf.
  • 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 (German for "one") from Cowboy Bebop; both of them are Corgis, although of different breeds.
  • Pyrrha's throwable shield is highly reminiscent of both Captain America's shield and Xena's chakram.
  • Neon Katt is Nyan Cat.
  • In V4E3, Sun Wukong refers to the trip to Menagerie as "a regular Journey to the East". The original Sun Wukong was a character in the classic tale Journey to the West.
  • The centaur-like Nuckelavee from V4 is a monster from Scottish and Orcadian folklore.
  • At the New York Comic-Con 2017 RWBY panel, Miles Luna admitted that Avatar: The Last Airbender was a major influence on the "look and feel" of Asian-flavored Mistral.
  • The Pinball Gag in V5E1 seems to be inspired by an almost identical sequence seen in an early episode of Love Hina.
  • A road made of yellow bricks at the end of V6E2.
• The Wiki Rule: The RWBY Wiki
• Younger Than She Sounds: Casey Lee Williams was thirteen years old when she recorded the songs for the trailers.