Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-115.98.114.126-20141002103625/@comment-24.61.230.178-20141003022540

Personally, I'm curious why Nora has a heart on her chest while Cinder has a heart on her back. Not only that, but Nora's outfit lends itself to a similar shape as Cinder's tattoo....with one critical difference:  the heart is reversed between the shoes.

In other words, the shape of Nora's torso, moving from waist to neck as outlined by her armor, is roughly the same shape as the slippers from Cinder's tattoo. But the heart is "upside-down". And whereas Cinder's "slippers" are black, Nora's are white.

If Nora was inspired by Thor, then does this hint at Cinder being Loki -- the evil step-brother? If so, then is there another character who will appear to represent another evil step-sibling?

If we follow this theme further, then Nora's step-mother would be the Black Queen. For hints there, we would need to look deeper at the Loki motif...

Loki was a giant, adopted and raised by Odin after Odin slew Loki's father. That would mean that Cinder was adopted into her family -- just like Cinderella. This would indicate another flip-flop in the story:  Cinderella would be the evil step-child, and her step-sisters would be the good children. That would, in turn, indicate that Cinder's step-mother (or maybe step-father?) was also good. Much like Odin.

So instead we would find that the Black Queen is not Cinder's step-parent, but perhaps her biological parent. And this may be where the surname Fall comes in... Loki's mother was Laufey, which in Norse has an unclear meaning though it is generally believed to pertain to a tree or leaves. An alternate name for Laufey in Norse myth is Nal, which meant Needle, perhaps as in a pine needle. That would draw us back to the scene at the end of the episode prior to the dance, where we see Cinder hold up a needle she had been sowing with. Was this a hint by Monty?

The Jotun predated the gods in Norse myth. In fact, the 9 realms were born from the corpse of a primordial giant. So the Jotun would correlate to the Grimm. Therefore, we could deduce, based on the Loki motif, that Cinder was actually born as Grimm. In Volume 2 Episode 9, we learn that Grimm can evolve and learn. What if Cinder's parent were such a Grimm? One that survived long enough to evolve into a more human-like state? We see that the older Grimm are, the larger they become. So RWBY has already established the giant motif.

If this is correct, then the Black Queen would actually be a very old and very evolved Grimm.

I could probably expand on this more, but it will have to wait until another time.