I’ve talked in the past about RWBY and some specific characters from it, and as much as I adore Ruby and Penny, quite possibly my favorite character in the series is one of the most contentious ones.
I absolutely love General James Ironwood.
Ironwood is such a fantastically written character, with it being so clear how his own inability to ask for help and trauma put him on a path to his own destruction. He did terrible things, but it’s easy to see the good man beneath it all, the one who wanted to save and protect people. I love the tragedy of it all. He’s very complex, and I constantly find myself analyzing him because there’s just so much that can be said.
So, now it’s time for me to stop subjecting my friends to my essays about him in our chats and to start just throwing these out into the world.
There’s so much that I could talk about with Ironwood, but we’re going to have to narrow things down a bit. Since it’s impossible to really talk in depth about Ironwood without bringing this up, we’re going to start with talking about Ironwood’s post-traumatic stress disorder.
To do that, we are going to need to talk about everything that we know about Ironwood. That does mean that we’re going to be getting into everything from RWBY volumes 1 to 8, so beware of SPOILERS.
First off, Ironwood without question has been through traumatic events that could have contributed to him developing PTSD, both in the show and from his unstated backstory. While we don’t know the specifics of his background, something happened that resulted in the right half of his body from the neck down being replaced with prosthetics. And, even assuming that his prosthetics didn’t come from any traumatic events, he’s been in the military for years, and we’re shown that the events of the Fall of Beacon in RWBY volume 3 had a profound impact on him.
Take one scene in volume 2’s episode “Mountain Glenn”. The episode opens with Ironwood and Glynda talking one evening, with him having woken up in the middle of the night due to pain in his arm, which may indicate he experiences phantom pains from his lost body parts. The trouble he has sleeping– whether it be because of nightmares or something else– is one symptom associated with PTSD.
There’s also what he says to Glynda in this scene, with him mentioning how he’s beginning to distrust Ozpin. Alone, this isn’t necessarily connected to his PTSD, but taken with everything else that we know about Ironwood from future volumes, it’s likely an indication of his negative assumptions about the world, with him trusting very few people.
Beyond that, though, Ironwood’s implied that he has hallucinations, with him saying to Yang in the volume 3 episode “Destiny”, “Sometimes you see things that simply aren’t there. Even after the fight has passed”. His time as a Huntsman and a soldier has had an effect on him, and this line makes it at the very least sound like he has flashbacks.
Ironwood’s also described as being paranoid by others, with this not only being an example of him having negative thoughts about the world but also showing his hypervigilance. He frequently isolates himself from others as well, matching with the criterion D symptom of PTSD that a person may experience feelings of isolation. His reliance on displays of military might to resolve problems could also be described as him displaying aggression– part of the criterion E symptoms of PTSD.
Ironwood’s also shown to be triggered by the sight of a queen chess piece, with that being a symbol used by Cinder during her attack on Beacon. When he finds a glass chess piece in his office in volume 7’s episode “Gravity”, he quickly begins to spiral, distrusting the people around him and getting defensive. At the reminder of everything that happened at Beacon, he begins to panic, striking out against people who went against his ideas of how to keep himself, and the city of Atlas, safe.
So, we’ve established that Ironwood fits the criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD. The problem then becomes that Ironwood has clearly never spoken to anyone about his trauma. If he had, he would have realized that seeing things that aren’t real is something that doesn’t happen to most people.
It’s impossible to say whether it’s for a lack of therapists in the world of Remnant or just because he has chosen not to speak to anyone about his problems, but I lean more towards the second option.
Ironwood is not someone who wants to be vulnerable around others. As the most powerful person in Atlas, he has a reputation to live up to, and showing any sign of weakness by asking for help is thus out of the question for fear of people taking advantage of that information. This is despite the fact that he really, really should consider talking to someone about his problems.
This then leads us to one major contributor to all of Ironwood’s problems– he has a need to come off as strong and heroic, isolating himself from others in the process.
There are very few people that could be described as being in Ironwood’s immediate social circle, and a problem then arises from him being the superior officer of many of these people. While he might be close to characters like Winter and Penny, his relationships with them will always be marked by the fact that he is their leader. This makes it hard for him to open up completely to either of them because he has to project the image of being strong and capable– no matter how much he might be hurting.
It’s hard to say what people outside of the Atlesian military Ironwood’s close to, though he definitely has strong relationships with Ozpin, Qrow, and Glynda. Again, though, comes the problem of him not allowing himself to be seen as weak.
The tragedy of Ironwood– and part of what I feel so compelling about him– is that he is a man destroyed by his own inability to ask for help.
Maybe if he knew how to better handle his symptoms of PTSD, he never would have tried to arrest Team RWBY for protecting Mantle. Maybe then Atlas wouldn’t have fallen. And I’m not alone in saying that– Miles Luna, one of the writers of the series, is said to have mentioned similar things in a crew commentary of volume 7.
But this is only one aspect of what I find compelling about Ironwood, though his refusal to ask for help and need to appear strong at the cost of ignoring his own needs and emotions is a recurring theme.
For now, though, we’ll leave it at that. But, if you didn’t notice the title of this article, I do plan on returning to this subject, because there’s so much more to talk about.
Come back next time where I’ll be talking about how Ironwood’s Semblance plays into his character and actions.