Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-1599757-20151212162645/@comment-10390252-20151213210210

Marfan22 wrote: I was thinking the same thing... except I figured Weiss would be the winter maiden, maybe from her mother (do we know if Wiess' mother is alive or not?). If she does inherit it from her mother, that would cause some tension between Wiess and Winter... Personally, my preferred and somewhat melodramatic scenario is that Winter is the Maiden and gets killed. Her last thought is for her beloved baby sister and thus it is that Weiss inherits those powers.

Tha said, the whole thing they're setting up with Weiss not being about to use the family's traditional spell seems to hint at a scenario like that in both A:tLA and A:LoK where the lead character has some kind of mental block and it isn't until they break through that that they can really use the powers they were born with. This would suggest that maybe Mr Schnee thought that Winter would be the next Maiden (thus the name) but it turns out to be the Less Favoured Sister, Weiss (who, as she wasn't destined to be a living goddess, had been chosen to be the family's heir).