First off, the heroes are supposed to have advanced to the level of Mercury by now. While threatening villains are good, it's no fun if the characters are always below the villains. Mercury is from very early on and is not even one of the main villains. The heroes should be on his level at least.

Secondly: you are completely missing my point. You have often expressed the belief that Watts is the best villain in the show. Now that I cut him out, the show is without that character. That is not an improvement. Not all characters have to be impossible to remove from the plot. RWBY has numerous subplots going on at once. Not everything has to be directly linked to the main plot so long as it's contributing something to the story.

This argument doesn't even work, anyway. In order to remove them from the plot, you have to make changes to other characters for it to work. If they were truly superfluous, you wouldn't have to make those changes, because a truly superfluous character affects nothing. Almost any characters in RWBY could have their roles merged together to create a story following a basically similar structure. This is really not the glaring flaw you think it is.

Sorry, but it is fun when the heroes are slightly below the villains. It's fun to watch/read the heroes coming up with clever plans and solutions to beating the villains, so when they do beat the villains, it's extremely satisfying. Also, if you think about it for a minute Hazel's motives are kinda meh, and hypocritical. He blamed Ozpin for the death of Gretchen, and so he decided to go to Salem to beat her until he couldn't lift his arms.

She easily manipulated him into doing her bidding. Now he fought for the woman who controls the Grimm. Not to mention, it's possible he and Tyrian murdered plenty of teenage to young adult hunters. That's why (I cannot stress this enough) we should have gotten a scene where we see Tyrian and Hazel killing the list of Mistral hunters. Have the scene from Hazel's point of view, where he questions himself if whether or not he's doing the right thing, and have him feel remorse about murdering people who had families.

Another problem is what was his relationship with Gretchen like, in my headcanon, he was smothering, and overprotective. That is what I loathe about RWBY's writing, you need to make headcanons, and speculations just to make sense of the story. Maybe they could have taken the time to flesh out Hazel's dynamic with his associates, and maybe get scenes where he acts a sort of father figure to Emerald and Mercury. Not just Hazel, but all of the main villain's relationships could have been fleshed out a bit more.

My exact words in that post were "threatening villains are good". You really do not need to argue that they are when I'm not even disagreeing. All I'm saying is that making an early-on villain still above the heroes despite all of their improvement is utterly ridiculous, so Mercury shouldn't be capable of fighting both Yang and Nora at once. Heroes should be on the level of some villains. You want overpowering, unstoppable, threats? Look at Team WTCH.

You are not even responding to my post at all. You're still arguing that Hazel was a hypocrite, but I didn't even mention Hazel in my most recent post. In there, I talked about how you can't just cut characters from the plot because they're "superfluous" when they're not. However, you are just venting about why you don't like Hazel (AGAIN) before devolving into general complaining about the show. That is clearly changing the subject.

Guys ik some ppl here are passionate to love or hate Hazel but plz leave Watts alone. Ur hurting my wonderful feelings :,(

Also @Old Gods of New Worlds , I can definitely agree to some extent that characters as they improve should come closer to facing off against the Villains in a more even way. However, I would disagree on certain fronts. For example, if your statement were to be considered true, what of Neo? Team RWBY has never truly 'beaten' her, despite all their training and experiences. The closest they got was when the Curious Cat attacked them, but he was Possessing them while he doesn't have her skill in battle. The other close call was with the Grumm Reaper, but it's the Grimm Reaper. To be honest, I feel like Mercury has been a bit cheated. Now, I'm not trying to say he's the best fighter out there, but I do think he should still remain a better fighter than the heroes (for now, at least). He's arguably trained harder at a younger age than any of them as most went to training schools whereas he learned through abuse. He's also been able to show some amazing feats of skill. For example he was able to briefly stand up to an inexperienced Maiden, whereas Glynda could also briefly stand against one with only part of the maiden power. He could fight Pyhhra to a standstill without utilizing any special functions of his weapons and despite the fact that Pyhhra was manipulating his legs. And he wasn't even trying! He also was able to nearly beat Yang, and he wasn't really trying then either. He was also strong enough to block a blow from Yatsuhashi in Volume 3 that broke half the field and caused multiple geysers to erupt. I feel He's greatly proved his capabilities. Again, I'm not saying he should be on Cinders level or anything, but I just don't see Team RWBY being there quite yet.

That being said, while Hazel overall as a character was met, I don't think it necessarily constitutes writing him off entirely. I consider him more of a character like Adam, who deserved better but simply wasn't given better.

I'm sure this is nitpicking, but to clarify:

Mercury didn't fight Pyrrha to a standstill. He fought just enough to get an idea of her Semblance and then gave up because that's all he wanted out of the match.

@Old Gods of New Worlds I wish we had gotten more time with Team WTCH. Like have the girls be in a battle of wits against Watts and/or brawl between Yang and Hazel. Adding onto a hypothetical Yang vs. Hazel brawl, we could also have them exchanging words about what it means to be an older sibling. It would be hella satisfying if the girls got to defeat Dr. Arthur Watts and Mr. Hazel Rainart themselves.

You know who's even more superfluous? Sienna Khan. There I said it.

@Spaddius Part of this is narrative logic, I'll admit. After nine Volumes, it'd be extremely frustrating for the audience for the heroes to still struggle against a minor villain from the start of the show. Having the characters be on Mercury's level is much more satisfying on a Watsonian level. Secondly, while Mercury has definitely had more intensive training than the main cast, we don't know the quality of that training. Marcus' skill level was never fully explained. He's an assassin, yeah, but we don't know how skilled an assassin he was. So the quality of Mercury's training is undefined. Mercury has had some decent feats, but mostly against Huntsmen trainees, while the main cast are full-on Huntsmen now. And he never fought Amber solo, and was quickly overpowered even alongside Emerald.

And believe me, I have my opinions on Neo, too...

@VivaciousVox97 And you are just drifting even more off-topic. You didn't counter any of the points I made at all. If you won't even acknowledge that I've said something, I see no reason to continue this debate.

Well, what I was getting at in the Amber example is that he could fight briefly against her despite having pretty bad weapons and with no Semblance. And he actually got some good hits in. But yeah he did have help so I'm not saying he can beat Maidens, but it does add to his merit.

@Kurokawa-san that was my point with the fight. He wasn't even trying to beat her whereas she was trying to beat him (perhaps a bit too much as she overstepped when Mercury forfeit, but that's just speculation) and yet Mercury could get the fight to a standstill. Considering Pyhhra fights Cinder later on(though admittedly, loses kinda badly), I think this is pretty significant.

@Old Gods of New Worlds I understand you are saying, you're saying just because a character might seem superfluous they aren't. Because if you were to remove a character it would drastically change the plot. When you said Mercury shouldn't be able to overpower both Yang and Nora, and the heroes should be on his level by now. I understand why because it shows the heroes' growth and development. Perhaps, in my haste I am wrong in saying "the removal of x character wouldn't change the story." Like in your counter example, of removing Watts and saying "does it make the story better." No not really, so why am I saying removing Hazel would make the story better. I'm not, I'm saying you could achieve the same effects if either Watts or Hazel were out of the picture. As for Mercury being leagues above the heroes. Maybe your right, maybe having the villains be constantly higher than the protagonists makes the series have a bleak and cynical message. So when said hero(es) is able to overcome one of the antagonists, it's deeply satisfying. So why not after they've defeated Emerald or Mercury. They take down someone who's even leagues above Mercury?