Rwby Are The Villains - Tumblr Posts
We literally see the bomb go off, we see Harriet doing her damndest to drop said bomb, we see the ace ops discuss if it’s a bluff and agree it fuming wasn’t,
If you think it’s a bluff you’d need to disregard literally everything the show tells us or shows us,
If you think its not a bluff you'd need to disregard that Ironwood did not order the detonation of the bomb the moment he got Penny in his hands.
You'd also have to disregard the fact that Harriet was about to not detonate the nuke thanks to Vine's advice, and Qrow and Robyn were responsible for escalating the tensions into a brawl that set off the bomb.
In any case, you should not be going off on me, or RWDE in general, for something that is entirely RT's fault.
The writers managed to cement Adam Taurus's villainy back in V5 when they SHOWED him detonating the Haven Academy bombs, but was only stopped by Ilia disarming those bombs.
RT dropped the ball (or bomb) on Ironwood because they had Trump Derangement Syndrome and were so eager to write a story about Political Power gone crazy they forgot to do for Ironwood what they did to Adam.
As it is, RT was so eager to have RWBY 'stop' Ironwood they forgot to actually write Ironwood as a definitive villain.
At this point, based on the writing, Ironwood can be interpreted as either a Hero or a Villain. I, and most of RWDE, choose Hero. Now you have to choose if you are willing to agree to disagree on this point.