Sunday, December 13, 2015

Hiatus warning and RWBY's Four Maidens

First of all, I'm officially going on hiatus until next year. I'm hoping to build a backlog of posts during the rest of December. However, that didn't stop me from rambling about the "Four Maidens" part of new episode of RWBY, so here's a rather rough post to tide you over, until I return to active blogging in 2016 with more RWBY and Steven Universe, plus Pokemon, Once Upon a Time, and more.
First, the colors of the original maidens. Winter Maiden is a mix of the white and blue of Atlas and Mistral silhouettes in World of Remnant. Spring Maiden is the same color as Vale silhouettes in World of Remnant, and Summer Maiden to Vacuo silhouettes in World of Remnant. Fall Maiden’s color is magenta. Could that be related to the now defunct Mantle, or maybe Menagerie? Not much has been said about it since Oobleck’s history lesson. Is Menagerie still a thing?

There are already characters named after the seasons (beside's Cinder), Summer Rose and Winter Schnee. The color of the Winter Maiden is also close to the color Weiss is assigned in World of Remnant. Her sister Winter (represented with White in World of Remnant) was one of the students encouraged to become an Atlas Specialist, that would lead to her becoming a right hand woman for Ironwood. Winter stated that she came for a classified mission for an undetermined amount of time, then she tells Weiss that she was just guarding a shipment and her distinct ship leaves. Continuing with this theory, Ironwood may have a plan in the wings for Winter to be kept around to counter Cinder's enhanced abilities.

Then we have Summer Rose. Common interpretation of "Red like Roses Part II" is Ruby talking about Summer’s death, and Summer apologizing for dying. The implication being that Summer’s last thoughts included Ruby, meaning that, if Summer was the Summer Maiden, Summer’s power would pass on to Ruby. Then there’s the lyric “baby please don’t do what I did//I don’t want you to waste your life in vain," which is interpreted as Summer's request that Ruby doesn't become a Huntress. Qrow, who definitely knows about the Four Maidens, was the one who taught her to fight, perhaps so she could defend herself better if Cinder figured out who she was? Ozpin was also surprised that Ruby was able to fight like that, which means he might not have been aware that Qrow taught Ruby. Ozpin was willing to jump her ahead a few years to place her in Beacon, under the watchful eye of himself and Professor Goodwitch, when he knew she was a good fighter who wasn’t keeping a low profile (”You’re robbing me? I’ll heroically ride your unconscious body out this window!”) during a time when danger was approaching, and he had Qrow out trying to get information on Cinder around the same time, which would leave this hypothetical Summer Maiden without a guard from the "brotherhood."

Next, Qrow says, “Putting aura into things.” I took this as him knowing about Penny, or at least a possible attempt to move Autumn’s aura to an android like Penny. If he did know about Penny, then decapitating those robots in front of her was a real dick move.

Next, they chose Pyrrha, a celebrity, to be the Fall Maiden. Pulling Pyrrha into hiding would arouse suspicion, so that means that the Maidens are hidden in plain sight (which would make sense if I’m right about Winter, Summer, and Ruby), or perhaps they’ll be revealed to the public right before the war to rally the people.

Finally, the story of the man with two souls battling for control. Pyrrha will take on a second aura, an extension of someone’s soul, making her a person with two souls (kinda): her own and the soul of a stranger who may have been in a coma since being attacked by Cinder. JKR is a master of subtle foreshadowing, and a lot of Rooster Teeth’s fanbase is probably in the age group that grew up with Harry Potter. Miles and Kerry do reference Harry Potter books in one interview. I disagree with the substance of the statement, but that means that they may be planning on taking story telling ideas from her, such as subtly introducing things early on (for example, introducing Sirius Black through the motorcycle Hagrid uses to deliver Harry to Privet Drive). This also means that Cinder is a person with two souls, but she seems to be in control. Cinder is willing to dominate and manipulate, but Pyrrha couldn't get herself to ask her friend to go to a dance with her.