Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-43756665-20200208204457/@comment-14909251-20200215074750

Okay, so let us consider the following things that would constitute a win for Salem:

1. Getting the Relic of Knowledge.

2. Getting the Relic of Creation.

3. Removing Oz from the battlefield.

Before this series is over a few things generally have to be true:

1. Salem cannot get all the Relics together.

2. Salem has to get, at least, one Relic and preferably two. Her getting three would be especially suspenseful, but unnecessary.

3. All Relics must be seen and used once, at a bare minimum. Jinn's last question, particularly, must be used.

4. Salem has to die and Oz's curse has to be lifted.

This arc cannot conclude without the following taking place:

1. Penny has to lose her Maiden powers.

2. Amity must be used.

3. The Staff of Creation is shown and used.

Given all of this, Volume 8 must end with Salem getting either the Relic of Knowledge, the Relic of Creation, or both. If she can remove Oz, then getting just one Relic is two out of three win conditions and enough to satisfy calling it a big defeat for the heroes.

What further follows is that in order to see the Staff, the vault must be opened, and that means someone getting the Maiden power and using it. Thus we have three scenarios for how that works out:

1. RWBY's group defeats Ironwood, Penny opens the vault, and they take the Staff of Creation, presumably after devising a plan to prevent massive loss of life from Atlas falling.

2. Salem's group obtains Penny's Maiden powers, defeats Ironwood, and the rest is obvious. They will not devise a plan to prevent massive loss of life as they do not care.

3. Ironwood's group obtains Penny's Maiden powers to implement their plan to send Atlas into the space.

Given that Penny must lose her Maiden powers, all options require her to die. However, none of those options require her to stay dead. The thing that may annoy people is that Penny can come back one last time. Most likely, this ends with Pietro sacrificing himself. By doing this they take away her Maiden powers, yet keep her in the story and make her definitively mortal as she cannot come back a third time. I think that is the more likely outcome than Penny staying dead.

Options 1 and 2 require that Penny be killed by Salem's group and they will likely not take steps to keep her preserved. So, I think option 3 is the one most likely to occur. I do note that under option 3, the person receiving Penny's Maiden powers is most likely going to be Winter. Due to that I suggest that even with option 3, it may not work out as intended and Winter may turn on Ironwood.

Winter could accept essentially killing Fria as she was already near death. Penny is another matter and Winter may resist only to be forced into it. That means he will cross several lines to get his option close to success and that may prompt Winter to turn on him then side with RWBY's group. How that shakes out is up in the air, though I think having a third Maiden power exchange would be pushing it. Under that scenario, I think Option 1 effectively prevails, but with Winter in Penny's place. Instead, the Staff is used to somehow force Salem into a retreat and as suggested above, it may be Oz/Oscar who comes up with the solution.

Of course, in this scenario, the villains cannot win in a particularly compelling fashion without removing Oz from the battlefield. Fortunately, that one is already handled by the fact that, if we assume Oscar alludes to Dorothy, the Wicked Witch of the West arriving with her army of flying monkies strongly hints at the outcome of him being abducted and taken away by Salem. This could mean he relays the plan for the Staff via Scroll or separates after reuniting. In this case the Relic of Knowledge remains in Salem's possession, though its question may be used by either her or Cinder.

This also allows more readily for Amity to be used as it would be unlikely that it could be used in any scenario ending with the destruction of Atlas. However, this allows for a final blow to the heroes as another unstated thing I think needs to be addressed in this arc is how Watts intended to use Amity. One way to establish that is to have it play out once they successfully finish the ACT and as completing it is essentially their one consolation after losing one of the Relics and Oz to Salem, this is like a final blow of defeat.

While not strictly a requirement, I do believe the presence of all four members of WTCH in Atlas really demands they all have one instance of fighting together as a team. Of those members, I believe only Watts is definitely expendable, provided he is able to implement his Amity plan. He serves little purpose beyond this arc regardless of what happens to Atlas. Hazel, I think, needs to be a heel-face turn and potential redemption through death case. The current situation is not amenable to that outcome, so I think that needs to come in a later arc. I see Tyrian being the last member of WTCH to fall.

Cinder, and I know everyone hates this, is really not someone I think they can kill off right now. The fact remains that she is the Fall Maiden and that makes her the key to the Beacon vault. While that power can switch, there really isn't a good place for it to go and it really needs to stay with Salem's side until around the return to Beacon. I love Neo, but she is a terrible replacement for Cinder. Emerald is also a very poor replacement and she works better as an eventual heel-face turn than as an emerging antagonist.

Some of the hatred for Cinder seems to be people taking a fictional show a little too seriously and personally, but I don't get the rest of it. Cinder is the ideal secondary antagonist and her ceasing in that role is best reserved for right before the final confrontation with the primary antagonist. Her character has personal history with all of the protagonists, can play the role of a strong fighter and devious manipulator, and she has hints of moral complexity that is at about the right balance to make her credible as an antagonist without making her seem like a mook.

Tyrian has no moral complexity and is thus a mook. Hazel's moral complexity makes him too much of a misguided good guy and his motivation is too narrowly focused. Watts is clearly more a manipulator than fighter. None have sufficient personal history. Not hard to apply these to Emerald, Neo, and Mercury, to show why they do not work either. Only two of those characters can become a Maiden as well. I just don't see either Neo or Emerald being Maidens and having Salem's group lose their Beacon vault key in this arc would undercut any victory they achieve. Also, we still haven't had much on exploring the consequences of Grimmification and making either of them a Maiden in this arc means they would need Grimm bugs for, at least, the Summer Maiden. That would start us back at the beginning.

All the above considered, I believe only Watts can die among Team WTCH in the next Volume. Emerald and Mercury, in my opinion, will live through this arc. Neo is the only antagonist other than Watts who I think could die without issue. Considering the heroes, there are more I find expendable. Penny, I think, does not die. Ironwood, who some would say is more an antagonist now, absolutely can die and there is no real reason to keep him around at the end of this arc. Basically, any Atlas-specific protagonist is free to die and I expect Pietro to die. Robyn and her Happy Huntresses are all disposable, along with the remaining Ace-Ops. That said, I would anticipate only some dying rather than all. Qrow can die, though it is less likely.

What I do not see is any of the main seven dying in this arc. RWBY, obviously, will all live right to the end of the show since they are the titular characters. JNR have less plot armor in that regard, but I think this is still a bit early to have them cut down further and especially too early to have Jaune get killed off. Really, I think Jaune is the one member of JNR most likely to remain alive at the end. Oscar is another character who has to live to the end and I really see him living beyond the end of the series, free of Oz due to him fulfilling his promise to the Gods. Also, if his allusion is Dorothy, then he is the reason Salem dies (by breaking her curse) and that takes place after his abduction.