Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-1599757-20151212162645/@comment-4010415-20151230050757

Seriously, 73, Cinder does have a good reason to try to damage or eliminate Team RWBY.

They may not have been on her list at the beginning, but once the tournament came around, she had plans to target them because they've been a thorn in her side.


 * Ruby interrupted Roman's Dust shop robbery, which led to Glynda showing up, and then seeing and fighting Cinder. If Ruby hadn't interrupted the robbery, Glynda might not have shown up and might never have seen Cinder.


 * Blake trying to find out if the White Fang really is involved in the Dust robberies led to her, Sun, and Penny stopping the huge Dust heist at the docks.


 * Team RWBY went out of their way to investigate the Dust robberies and the White Fang. The biggest issue was Blake and Sun infiltrating a White Fang meeting and finding out that the White Fang had plans to gather in the southeast for something. They also saw that the White Fang had gotten their hands on Paladins. Ruby relayed info to Ozpin.


 * Team RWBY went out of their way to investigate in the southeast. Their meddling there led to the breach happening much sooner than Cinder had intended.

Team RWBY has been putting hurdles in Cinder's way. Yes, Cinder's plans have still been successful regardless of these hurdles, but... it's better to be cautious and try to get rid of the people who are putting hurdles in the way. It's better to try to ensure that her future plans will go much more smoothly and predictably, rather than getting cocky and thinking "They've failed to stop us so far anyway."

Cinder made sure that Team RWBY progressed through the tournament, and then, she hit two birds with one stone: The audience gave off such a huge collective of negative emotion that it got the attention of the Grimm and the fallout of Yang's actions will cause problems for Team RWBY, thus distracting them and making them less liable to notice Cinder's group during the next stages of their plans.