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"This game sucks."

• Thavian's introduction is like the fantasy equivalent of Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka. He noticeably limps across a frozen river, and once he's got everyone's attention, he throws his wolfskin cloak and staff aside, and the first thing he does is "a wordless, gleeful cry" before conjuring up a whiskey bottle.
• The Rock Lord, in its first appearance, is given a descriptions similar to the Great Goblin in the Hobbit. Its first act in the story is to grab a Stonewight by the throat and hammer him alive into a brutish sword. Turns out, that's where all its Evil Minions get their weapons.

• David with his first dialogue exposes how cheerful and optimistic he is no matter how mundane the situation is. In fact, once an episode there is a moment dedicated to reminding the audience how overly cheerful and optimistic David is.

  David: Can you believe it Max? We're getting not ONE, not THREE, but TWO new campers today!

• David and Gwen are both summed up pretty much perfectly with their first dialogue together.

  David: Good morning, Gwen!
  Gwen: MOTHERFUCKER!

• Five seconds into Nikki and Neil's arrival at camp, Nikki bites David's hand to 'assert dominance' and Neil timidly asks if they're at science camp.
• When the camp counselors are talking about the variety of their curriculum, each of the other campers are shown, and it explains exactly what they're all there for and what their shtick is. Furthermore, in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, the camper struck by Nerris' "lightning bolt" is Harrison, establishing their rivalry.

• Ciro's introduction has him acting as the mediator in a study group that's stressed from the upcoming finals.
• Finn is introduced by openly mocking and deriding the performance of a girl in the acting club.
• When Jacob is first shown, he's sequestered himself away in a storage room in order to focus properly on his studying. When the screams of the other students reach him, he ignores them and instead sets out to find somewhere more quiet to study.
• When Jemimah is first shown, she's cheerfully beating up a tree in the park, blissfully unaware of the other characters meeting nearby to discuss their superpowers.
• Hyeon's cousin Jae is first introduced when he cusses Hyeon out for the destruction of school property, setting up the vitriolic and estranged relationship between the two.
• When Jessica first shows up, she snaps at a kindly janitor when he seems to be ignoring her.

• When he first appeared, Montoya initially came off more or less seemed just another petty crook looking for money, acting casual and occasionally joking with his partners. However, the brief glimpse into his personal life and his subsequent calling out of his own partner for refusing to tip a waitress quickly showed how likeable a guy he really was and turned him into an Ensemble Dark Horse.
• Rotor probably got his establishment as a rough and cold-minded but extremely competent leader when he lead the initially assaults on the XERRD Fortress, considering he got to show off his talents rather nicely.
• Cabin's introductory scene more or less established her as a realist, though she had a few later moments that showed off another side.
• Pharisee arguably got his when we first met him, coldly looking over the case files of several controversial individuals and judging them each harshly. It certainly sets up several things, among them his brutal beat down of Montoya.
• Unintentionally subverted with Trigger, whose introductory scenes attempted to establish him as a badass and an expert in the Maelstrom, but only caused people to see him as a complete Jerkass and an idiot.
• Sarah Bishop's rather violent No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of Rotor, not to mention bludgeoning Cabin in the face when she tried to break it up should give you a pretty good idea of her mental state by this point.
• A simple example, but Pierce was first introduced as a doctor helping Zenna after she sustained serious injuries. That should give you a pretty good idea of his role in all this.

• Corliss' second line:

  She gasps excitedly. "You're from Central High, right?!"

• Gavin:

  One of them tenses, his shoulders shooting up. He turns around slowly, his face downturned but eyes glaring up at Corliss'.

• Nara, when she gets Corliss off your back:

  "Hey, no problem, that's what best friends are for! I can tell you're stressed out."

• When Micah explodes on Page 14:

  "Look, you don't even have any friends besides Nara, and all you do is hole up with her in this house! You need to get out there and make more friends, and here's the perfect, lowest-risk opportunity to do it! You're a loner, a loner! And you've been this way ever since Mom died, and I'm-" he uses a passion word I never thought he'd use- "sick of it!"

• Principal Wyatt, when she talks to you about the dream scenery on page 24.
• When Iris leads the group of actors your way on Page 27.

  "Iuh- saw you swoop in yesterday night. THAT was funny! Uh, anyway, you'll probably be joining US! WE'RE THE DWARRVES!"

• Roy's introduction:

  "...Roy."

• Aidan tries to bug you as soon as you meet.

  Aidan gets in my face with a giant smirk: "Jiiiiiiiii-dooooooooww? Or do you prefer to go by 'Grok'?"

Tom: Thank you, Zack, for ruining the 20th take.
Zack: You're welcome, man.
Tom: You're not sorry, are you?
Zack: Nope.

Codex: So, it's uh Friday night, and... still jobless, yay. I haven't left the house in a week. My therapist, uh, broke up with me. Oh yeah, there's a, there's a Gnome Warlock in my living room, sleeping on my couch.

"Hi, I'm your Nostalgia Chick, and I, like most of the world, am an American."

• Ruby's introduction in the pilot episode consists of her being interrupted from her comic browsing when the Dust shop she's in is targeted for a robbery. She impulsively fights the henchman in a flashy, destructive street fight, pauses to make sure the elderly shopkeeper is okay, then goes after the boss, Roman Torchwick; when a trained Huntress intervenes, she still helps where she can, later asking for the Huntress's autograph like a fangirl. When she's de-briefed after the fight by the headmaster of Beacon Academy, it's made clear that she's an impulsive prodigy whose driving goal is to become a Huntress because all she wants to do in life is help people as much as she can.
• Ren and Nora are introduced through a montage where Nora is blathering at Ren about everything that's on her mind while Ren is calmly engaged in various activities without saying anything, immediately establishing their opposing personalities. At the end of this montage, Ren speaks up. Not only does Nora stop talking and start listening as soon as Ren speaks, but Ren goes on to show that he's been paying attention to everything Nora's been infodumping. This shows us that Ren is smart, Nora is kind, and the two of them are very close friends despite their opposite personalities.
• Qrow is introduced draped over a bar, piss-drunk and criticizing all the tournament matches as a mess. When the barman asks what fight he's here for, he points out an arriving airship before staggering off. He picks a fight with the owner of that craft, a Huntress-trained Atlesian Specialist, because he's heard General Ironwood has turned on Ozpin, and fights her to a standstill despite being wasted. It's later confirmed that he's a bit of a troublemaker, an habitual drunk and is extremely loyal to Ozpin. He only grows beyond these traits after Ozpin becomes a Broken Pedestal in Volume 6, which forces him to reassess himself, his drinking, and what he fights for from Volume 7.
• Winter is introduced as a very prim and proper military officer who responds to all of Weiss's questions with a terse "classified". Then she asks Weiss how she's been and Dope Slaps her when Weiss starts talking about her studies instead of her health and personal life. Shortly afterwards, Qrow goads her into a fight by insulting Ironwood and the two are evenly matched. All of this shows that while she may appear cold, she deeply loves her little sister, is very loyal to her commanding officer, is a highly skilled warrior, and doesn't have anywhere near as tight a leash on her emotions as she'd like to think.
• When Salem's subordinate Hazel first encounters Oscar, Ozpin warns Oscar to be wary of him, but he helps the boy obtain a train ticket he can't pay for, and advises him to not let small things stand in his way. It's later confirmed that Hazel hates violence and believes Salem is trying to save the world from the current world order that Ozpin created, which Hazel believes gets innocent people — especially children — needlessly killed. The scene sets up his future interactions with Oscar, his extreme hatred of Ozpin which drives him to do terrible things, and his eventual decision to switch sides to save the lives of both Oscar and Emerald once he finally learns the truth about Salem's real end-game and why Ozpin is fighting to prevent it from coming to pass.

• Lucy's first lines of dialogue are (in order) asking Sullivan if 1) Hyzenthlay is what they're eating for dinner that night, 2) if she can skin Hyzenthlay and make her into a hat, and 3) if she can decapitate Hyzenthlay and play with her body. All while Hyzenthlay is standing right there.
• When Lucy makes the aforementioned comment about ripping Hyzenthlay's head off "because that would just get in the way" of her playtime, Shuck rolls his eyes and sarcastically adds "Obviously."
• Hyzenthlay just sort of watches quietly without complaint or fear while Lucy is talking about all the horrible things she's going to do to her.
• Fleischer yells at Lucy to stop biting Winifred.
• Winifred just lowers her ears and looks down when Lucy asks if Winifred likes it when Lucy bites her.
• Sullivan admonishes Lucy not to eat Hyzenthlay and asks Shuck to help him with dinner - both with equal casualness - then tells Lucy to stop spitting up her fangs all over the carpet because trying to clean them up ruined his vacuum cleaner.
• In a later episode, Wexle, Ludwig and Fontaine come in together and get theirs at roughly the same time. Wexle first appears to be a rather sinister horned black demoness with lightless black eyes and tentacles, until she begs Ludwig to let them stay at Sullivan's over the holidays because she loves Christmas so much. Ludwig, by contrast, criticizes her for practicing what he calls "simian tradition". During this same conversation, Fontaine takes Wexle's side against Ludwig and (quite cheerfully) calls Christmas "a good distraction from the bleak reality of our situation."
• Quinn arrives in the middle of an argument between Ludwig and Lucy, and despite having an important message to deliver, nervously asks if this is a bad time and he should come back later.
• Felicity interrupts Quinn while he's in the middle of delivering a message to enthusiastically greet him and then challenge him to a race.
• Jones stalking down some poor schmuck through his phone and then presumably murdering him on the streets of London.
• Yeshua's brash intelligence, dedication to helping others, egotism, and capacity for crudeness are all clearly established in his first lines of dialogue.
• Locket mauls and kills Holly just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and is then shown calmly drinking tea and reading a book.

• Chaka starts off as a young black teenage boy sharing a room with his unpleasant Gangsta Wannabe older brother, except he's not only becoming a mutant and having to go to a Superhero School but turning into a girl as well, because this setting is basically X-Men with the gay rights allegory promoted from subtext to an actual plot point... And she is absolutely goddamn stoked about it. She also loudly and angrily calls her brother out on his bullshit.
• The headmistress, Dr. Elizabeth Carson, gives the welcome speech and immediately comes across as someone you'd better not cross. Then later on, at Halloween, we meet her other identity, Lady Astarte, and we find out she's really someone you shouldn't tick off.
• Trevor James Goodkind is a Sheltered Aristocrat, heir to billions in a wealthy anti-mutant business family and being groomed to be one of the Goodkinds who takes over the reins of power. We first see him and his family at dinner, being waited on, having a staff of chefs, and Trevor is plotting about how, when he grows up, he's going to get his favorite chef to come with him when he moves out. The next morning, he manifests as a mutant and things rapidly go downhill from there, with a series of Break the Haughty scenes.