Roman Torchwick is a major antagonist in the 2013 web-series RWBY and one of the two main protagonists (alongside Neopolitan) of the 2021 prequel novel RWBY: Roman Holiday.

He is a charismatic criminal from the kingdom Mistral who moved to Vale to flee from the Spider Syndicate he was once a part of, after ticking off the leader Lil Miss Malachite one too many times. He now works for Cinder Fall and serves as the "face" of their criminal operation while Cinder and her crew stay in the background. he is one of the three Archenemies of Ruby Rose.

He was voiced by Gray G. Haddock in Volumes 1 to 3, and by the late Billy Kametz and Christopher Wehkamp in Volume 9. In the Japanese dub, he was voiced by Shinichiro Miki.

His Evil Ranking[]

What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]

In General[]

• While he had many comedic moments, most of which stemming from his sarcastic and witty remarks towards his allies and enemies, none of them are detracting from his heinous actions, which are treated seriously in-universe. In fact, there have been times where his comedic moments often helped cement how ruthless and callous he truly is, such as his almost childlike glee when destroying the Atlesian fleet and hacking their drones to make them attack civilians.

Roman Holiday[]

• During his days in the Spider Syndicate, he did not care about his fellow teammates. He only saved one of his companions, Chameleon, from being tortured and covered up her failure to Lil Miss as to 'save his own standing' instead of caring about her. He even strung her along when she read too much into his actions, thinking she was useful to him.
• While he does take down Paul Parrot and the Parrot and Mouse Syndicate, revolting criminals who fed Paul's enemies to Rat Grimm for years, Roman only did so in his scheme to get out of babysitting the Malachite twins and had no idea how depraved Paul was until his plan was already in motion. He also shows apathy to Paul's Grimm running rampant around the city, saying the Huntsmen and Huntresses would take care of them, 'and if it takes some of them out that's just gravy'.
• He goes behind Lil Miss Malachite's back and charges twice as much money from businesses as she intended, keeping the extra money for himself, thus subverting his 'respect' for Lil Miss.
• He wrecks a shop that does not pay him the extra money, even threatening to shoot a young boy for recording him. He also nearly breaks the shopkeeper's knee, mentioning this was his 'favorite part of the job'.
• Once in Vale, Roman pulls a bank robbery and injures and tries to kill one of the guards.
• By the end of the novel, Roman successfully brings down Neo's father Jimmy Vanille's scheme to take over the criminal underworld of Vale, as well as helping foil Lil Miss Malachite's plot to expand to Vale. However, he reveals he actually kept Jimmy's record of all the dust in Vale for himself, saying Jimmy had the right idea and planning to use his plan for himself and Neo, showing he did not do this for moral reasons.
• He gets some ship teasing moments with Lisa Lavender. Sending her flowers as he liked her coverage of him, and she later tells him she liked the flowers. However, he still nearly kills her in the show when he tries to destroy Vale's capitol, so this is subverted.

RWBY[]

• He joined up with Cinder Fall, planning to help her and Salem's faction with world domination, his reasoning being that 'If you can't beat em join em'.
• He robs Dust from across the kingdom of Vale to use for Cinder's nefarious purposes.
• He pretends to care about social causes and wants to bring down the kingdom's corruption, using it to recruit the White Fang for the big scheme. Truthfully, he does not care about the Faunus, and is only using them because they are useful.
  • He is also shown to make racist jokes towards Faunus, like saying "Here, kitty kitty" while looking for Blake.
• When he sees Sun and Blake in the crowd, he tries to kill them with an Atlesian mech. He chases them throughout the city and even the streets, which may have killed many people as he hit dozens of cars while chasing them.
• When one of his henchmen told Roman that the train cars weren't ready, he threatened to kill him if he did not active them.
• He lied to the Atlas soldiers that they made him see the error of his ways, when he truly did not and was more worried about them scratching his hat than seeing the wrong in his actions.
• At the end of Volume 2, he tries to destroy the capital city of Vale. He uses train cars with bombs on them to blow holes in the streets of Vale and lure Grimm into the city, and originally intended for the White Fang to do damage with Atlas tech.
• When he is busted out of his cell during the Fall of Beacon, he starts blowing up Atlesian airships, scoring a body count of hundreds, possibly thousands.
• He happily drops bombs on the city of Vale, and then uploads Arthur Watts' virus. This hacks into Atlesian robots, who then start to shoot people. This also frames Atlas for the Fall of Beacon, which has lasting consequences for several volumes afterwards.
• He beats up Ruby before trying to kill her one last time.
• Even after his death, he continues to have a negative impact throughout the rest of the series; particularly through Neopolitan, who became obsessed with revenge against Ruby Rose for Roman's death. He even made a comeback through Neo's illusions when she attempted to break Ruby's spirit in the Ever After.

What Prevents Him from Being Pure Evil?[]

• He genuinely and fully loves Neopolitan, and demonstrates this numerous times. He encourages her and tells her she is 'phenomenal' to boost her confidence, he nearly sacrifices himself for her in the climax, and in the show, he displays distress when he thinks she died.
• He has a minor but genuinely tragic backstory that affects him to this day. He was left at an orphanage by his mom and grew up on the streets. Once, he tried to help a woman who he thought was being mugged, only to find out he interrupted a meeting between 2 criminals that went wrong, which ended with the woman accusing Roman of a crime he didn't commit to draw attention away from herself. This led to him forming his 'looking out for me and me only' mindset.

External Links[]

• Roman Torchwick on the RWBY Wiki
• Roman Torchwick on the Villains Wiki
• Roman Torchwick on the Entertaingly Detestable Wiki

Navigation[]

Near Pure Evils

Cinder Fall (Manga) | Roman Torchwick