| “ | [Your boss won't stay dead...but you will without this ;). If you want her name, you know what you owe me.] | „ |
| ~ Neo's text to Cinder Fall, blackmailing her with the Relic of Knowledge. |
| “ | I'm going to enjoy watching you break. | „ |
| ~ Neo, speaking to Ruby Rose through illusions of the latter's deceased allies and foes. |
| “ | She wanted to do what ever she wanted. And right now that was helping Roman set the world on fire. (...) For once, she wasn't worried about anything. No one was ever going to catch Neo and Roman. | „ |
| ~ Excerpt from Roman Holiday. |
Trivia Vanille, better known as Neopolitan ''Neo'', is a major antagonist of the anime-influenced web series RWBY and one of the two main protagonists (alongside Roman Torchwick) of its 2021 prequel novel RWBY: Roman Holiday.
Neopolitan is the henchwoman and partner of the notorious criminal Roman Torchwick until his demise during a fight with the trainee Huntress Ruby Rose. She subsequently swore vengeance against Ruby, forming a tentative alliance with Torchwick's former associate Cinder Fall to bring about her desire. She is one of the arch-enemies of Ruby Rose.
While she does not speak, her vocal effects are provided by Casey Lee Williams.
Appearance
As a child, Trivia never got a say in her clothing; her parents always bought the most drab, ordinary clothing they could find for her. As a result, she once shoplifted for something in her style; subconsciously as her imaginary friend Neo told her what to pick. At the time her hair was pure brown, but after the events of Roman Holiday, it gained a natural hair pink to it; she had previously been using her semblance to do so.
Neo (themed after Neapolitan ice cream) has the appropriate trio of colors in her hair and on her outfit. Her hair is half pink and half brown, with white streaks in the pink half.
Neo's natural eye color changes between brown, pale pink, and white, and they can alternate coloration in differing combinations, with this ability apparently being entirely under her control. Because of this, she tends to temporarily have a condition known as heterochromia iridium, where the eyes of a subject have two different colors. In her case, it is complete heterochromia, where one iris in its entirety is a different color from the other.
Neo wears a white jacket with a pink interior, brown pants, and gray boots with very high heels. Under her jacket is a black corset, curved in the middle and at the bottom, exposing her hips. She also wears a multitude of necklaces, which hang haphazardly around her neck.
Following the time skip after the fall of Beacon, Neo wears the same outfit. However, it is much more tattered, she also now wears Roman's hat.
In her current outfit, she still wears Roman's hat. However, she now wears his scarf as well as some sort of white corset with a leather trench coat with a little bit of pink with a small ice cream keychain on the back as well as white jeans and gloves.
Neo is also rather diminutive in stature, compared to the rest of the main cast, including Ruby Rose, the youngest known character, as shown in the height chart presented by Monty Oum. This is demonstrated in "No Brakes", when she stands off against Yang Xiao Long, as Neo is only able to reach her chin in overall height while wearing high heels.
Personality
In her early years as Trivia Vanille, Neo was withdrawn due to being isolated from the world by her criminal parents who couldn't accept her heterochromia, semblance, or muteness. As a result, she created an imaginary friend named Neopolitan, who was her desired future self. As she grew up, Trivia grew to hate her family and constantly escape home with the help of her semblance. This led her to meet Roman Torchwick, who accepted her muteness and saw how useful her semblance was; leading the newly self-christened Neo to form a partnership with him. At this point she had no love for her family, feeling happy they died in the dust explosion that destroyed her childhood home.
Roman was the sole person Neo put her trust and respect in, since he saw value in her. Their partnership was steady, unlike their alliance with Cinder's Faction, which they only agreed to under threat of Cinder's allies in a secret cabal. Proof of this is that Roman went into a rage against Ruby Rose for sending Neo flying into a flock of Grimm during the Battle of Beacon. Surviving that, Neo later returned the sentiment by seeking revenge against Ruby for her supposed involvement with Roman's death; to this end, she allied with Cinder again, as both wanted her dead.
Neo exhibits a stern, pragmatic, and businesslike demeanor at the White Fang meeting. However, when intervening to help Roman following his defeat, she wears a self-assured and authoritative smile, and she politely bows to Team RWBY, showing confidence on the battlefield. Neo's confidence is also seen in her fight with Yang, smiling throughout the entire fight, whilst quietly mocking and taunting her as well. She displays confidence before the fight, not only against Yang, but also Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna, as she reveals herself immediately to the trio, and is prepared to fight them.
Neo is also shown to have a sadistic and manipulative side, as seen in her smile when she prepared to stab Yang. However, she does seem to exhibit fear and hesitance when she knows that she is outmatched, fleeing if her opponent proves to be as such. It is shown when Raven Branwen appears and engages her on the White Fang cargo train. Neo also appears to have a vengeful side, as seen in her attempt to kill Cinder for her part in Roman's death, only stopping when Cinder reveals her full power and agrees to work with Neo to kill Ruby.
Neo does not trust anyone except Roman but is willing to ally as long as there is a common interest, or she has leverage over them. Hence why she agrees to ally with Cinder to kill Ruby (after being intimidated by her Maiden magic into not blaming her), but loses her patience when Cinder puts appeasing Salem first; thus, she uses the Relic of Knowledge as collateral to make Cinder put their deal first. Ultimately, Neo learned Cinder couldn't be trusted as she kicked her, along with Ruby into a void.
In the Ever After, Neo took delight in realizing the absurd world had boosted her Semblance to the point she could create clones of whatever she wanted. Having chosen to use this new power to show Ruby her origins with Roman, while also creating clones of all Ruby's dead allies to mess with her. Even better was the idea of using the Tree of Ascension as a threat to unmake Ruby. However, Neo was shocked Ruby gave up so easily, unaware that she had just been the final straw to snap whatever was left of Ruby's will to live. The shock of getting her revenge put Neo in catatonia as she had no idea what to do next. The last bit of her mind reacted with fear to the Curious Cat possessing her.
After the Cat is exorcised by burnt Tree leaves, Neo manages to get perspective. After having her Jabberwalker clones kill the Cat in retaliation, Neo accepted that the current her no longer had a purpose and that there was a chance Ascending via the Tree could give her one. She politely bowed to Team RWBY and Jaune, accepting they were not at fault.
RWBY Chibi
- Main article: Neopolitan (RWBY Chibi)
Neo also appears in the non-canon comedy spinoff series. Here, she appears as the loyal associate of Roman. However, she is cynical and communicates through signs, similarly to Wile E. Coyote.
RWBY: Amity Arena
Neo appears as a unit in RWBY: Amity Arena called "Parasol Neo", being a lightweight melee fighter that, once defeated, reveals herself to be just an illusion and attacks for real with a full health bar. Additionally, she appears in the Team Attack "Partners in Crime", where she teams up with Roman, who pulls units into her to attack.
BlazeBlue: Cross Tag Battle
Neo appears as a DLC character in the crossover fighting video game BlazeBlue: Cross Tag Battle, making her the fifth and final RWBY character to be featured.
Powers & Abilities
Neo's weapon of choice is an umbrella named Hush, containing a long, thin blade hidden within the length of the umbrella's tube, which can also project the blade from the top end of it, with the crook handle serving as the hilt. The canopy of her umbrella possesses high defensive properties, demonstrated by its ability to block an incoming blast from Yang Xiao Long's Ember Celica, also Cinder's fire blast. Roman Holiday revealed it was special order gift from Roman.
Neo is shown to be a highly skilled combatant, able to defeat Yang in a one-on-one fight, seemingly playing with her opponent as she was able to defeat her without taking anything more than a glancing hit. In close quarters combat, Neo utilizes her umbrella's open form in parrying Yang's attack which opened her up to counter blows. Neo also displays incredible reflexes and speed, dodging several of Yang's attacks with ease, even when holding her umbrella in one hand. This was further shown in "Heroes and Monsters" where she was easily able to keep up with and defeat Ruby almost singlehandedly.
Neo also showed herself to be very acrobatic and exceptionally skilled in hand-to-hand combat, relying on her agility to dodge and misdirect enemy movements and attacks, before retaliating with her own kick-based attacks, as her combat style is mostly relied on kicks, similar to that of Mercury's combat style. All of this was thanks to acrobatics, ballet and tightrope training she had in her school life as Trivia Vanille.
When it comes to hand-to-hand, Neo was shown to be evenly matched with Cinder Fall; with her umbrella to parry attacks.
Semblance
Neo's semblance, known as Overactive Imagination, allows her to create fake imagery out of a fragile pink energy generated by her aura. Neo uses it in quite versatile ways, ranging from misdirection, illusion and disguises. For example, Neo caused an illusion of herself and Roman to appear when Yang tried to attack them without the energy appearing; it shattered on impact. Cosmetic changes to her hair and eyes also do not cost her much aura, and thus no energy is seen.
After the Fall of Beacon, Neo trained her semblance to withstand blows that would shatter it, so she could hide how disheveled she's become since then. By this point, Neo's illusions are physically there, but can't take much hits.
Neo often disguises herself with Overactive Imagination for espionage tasks. Successfully breaking Roman out in Volume 3 and sneaking into the militaries of Minstrel and Atlas.
In the Ever After, Neo's rage made her semblance evolve to the point she could create clones of whoever she wished and speak through them if she ever heard their voices. Even buildings created by her semblance were no solid and sturdy.
Trivia
- Her name and appearance reference Neapolitan ice cream, which is a combination of strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla flavors. These colors correspond to her color scheme.
- However, it is also speculated that she also alludes to Mary Poppins from the book of the same name, due to her umbrella and magic-like abilities as well as her semblance.
- From the 8th to the 11th of July 2014, Monty hinted at this long before the character's first appearance by tweeting pictures of Neapolitan ice creams.
- Neo alludes to Hecate, or Trivia, the goddess of a three-way crossroads.
- Her hair is composed of multiple colors, which could be a reference to popular depictions of Hecate where she has three faces.
- Her birth name was Trivia, which is the name of Hecate's Roman counterpart. Taking on her Neopolitan identity over her Trivia one can be reflective of how Hecate was reimagined into Trivia by the Romans.
- Neo's name calls to mind Neapolitan ice cream, which is a cross between three different flavors of ice cream, specifically chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. This could reference the three-way crossroads that Hecate presides over.
- Her semblance is used to summon illusions, which may be a reference to Hecate being the patron goddess of witchcraft.
- Her partnership with Roman Torchwick may reference the fact that Trivia is a goddess of the Roman pantheon.
- Hecate is often depicted as carrying two torches, which fits with Neopolitan's partnership with Roman Torchwick.
- There has been some confusion regarding the spelling of Neo's name. Prior to 2019, it was spelled as one word, "Neopolitan", by the series' creator, the late Monty Oum, as well as on merchandise. In 2019, Rooster Teeth claimed that her name was spelled "Neo Politan" (her presumed first and last name), due to Neo's character files in the game RWBY: Amity Arena being named "Neo_Politan", a fact allegedly confirmed by the RWBY crew (affectionately nicknamed "CRWBY"). However, with the release of The World of RWBY: The Official Companion book, the confusion was settled when her name was confirmed to be spelled "Neopolitan". Despite this, the crossover fighting video game BlazeBlue: Cross Tag Battle retained the two-word spelling.
- Neo- (νεο-) is also a Greek prefix, meaning "new". In English, "neo-" is also used as a prefix to denote something that is contemporary, recent, modern, or new. The word neapolitan itself derives from the Greek Neápolis (Νεάπολις), meaning "new city". Neo also means "young" and "immature" in Greek, usually in medical terms.
- Monty stated during the August 21st Rooster Teeth livestream that Neo's design is partially based on a presentation-play cosplay of Torchwick made by one of his friends.
- Neo, according to a photo Monty posted on his Facebook, is the shortest person of all characters in RWBY.
- Neo can change the color of her eyes at will, usually alternating between pink and brown. They can also turn white (completing the ice cream theme) although rarely; one turns white as she removes the sword from her umbrella, and both turn white when Raven appears. Later, she also changes her eyes to green as part of her tournament disguise and magenta as part of her paramedic disguise.
- Neo adopted her current name and entered a life of crime with Roman at 18; being roughly 23 at the time of Volume 7.
- Cinder says Roman was Neo's boss, but RWBY Roman Holiday reveals that they were equal partners in crime.
- When possessed by the Curious Cat, Neo is revealed to indeed posses a faint voice; as it echoes when the cat speaks.
External Link
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BlazBlue Persona 4 Arena (Ultimax) Under Night In-Birth RWBY Akatsuki Blitzkampf/EN-Eins Perfektewelt | ||
