Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-70.72.38.180-20150401032633/@comment-14909251-20150424233749

Time to Say Goodbye is very clearly about the students and their actions in Volume 2. A running theme in that Volume is growing up and becoming soldiers as opposed to just being children. Sacrifice is more interesting as it is similar to Time to Say Goodbye, but seems to represent an even more desperate situation. It depends on how you view the use of first and second-person pronouns. Is the person that song is about only represented in the first person or are some second-person pronouns directed at the person the song is about?

It is easy to take the verses as a second-person reference to the subject of the song, but is the refrain a first-person reference to the subject of the song? That seems to be the most apt way of viewing the song, which means the verses are someone speaking to the subject or the subject sort of speaking to his or herself or being spoken to by a voice in his or her head (something like the subject's own doubts).

Should this be how we need to understand the lyrics, then Cinder is a good fit because it means "All your faith in ancient ways" is a reference to the subject of the song. Given what we know of Cinder's use of Dust and it being a more ancient method per World of Remnant, it makes sense that would be a reference to her. It nicely lines up with the reference to being a "fallen" angel and her last name being Fall. Put in that context, the song certainly does speak to victimhood and some inner struggle with her place in the world.

Were we to instead take the first-person portions as the voice of the subject and the entire song as being in the first-person, then it is a song about someone rebelling against the current culture, its ancient roots, and expectations of society regarding war. This is the view of the song that more closely matches the theme of Time to Say Goodbye and Volume 2 as well. Understanding it that way makes it just about the students or a specific student.