User blog:Zolnir/Ozpin: The Age Immortal Headmaster

The idea probably isn't even new, honestly. But let's throw it out there for a proper discussion anyway.

So, first, why are we assuming Professor Ozpin is near immortal, and lived a lot longer than anyone else in Remnant? That's simple! It all started with his most infamous quote to date:

"Ruby, I've made more mistakes than any man, woman and child on this planet."

So first things first, Remnant is apparently a planet. Just clarifying for... I don't know really. Why did I even doubt this in the first place again... oh god I got distracted. Moving on!

While it may seem at first that there are many ways for Professor Ozpin to perform such a feat, logically thinking, there is always one element that has to be in place in order for his words to be true:

Time.

Without enough time, anyone older than him can claim that his claim is bullshit. That is simply the law. Professor Ozpin's appearance is that of a middle-aged man, and at first I've even thought him to be a fairly young thirties who dyed his hair grey/silver for whatever reason. I mean we have freaks like Sephiroth, so.

Point. Even if Ozpin is - at the most I give him, sixty plus years old - it is possible that someone like Professor Port, an old man who seems older than Ozpin, to have committed more mistakes than Ozpin. It's not a matter of scale, which a lot of people seem to be confused of. You can accidentally kill the entire world and that still constitute as only ONE gigantic mistake. The thing that matters here is frequency, and whoever has more time will naturally has the higher frequency in the long run no matter what.

So there are only 2 ways for Professor Ozpin (I always welcome a 3rd, but don't blame me if I shoot you down with a counter argument):

1) Time manipulation. He can rewind time - in that case then he has definitely committed more mistakes than anyone else in the planet. One can imagine that he rewinds it in attempt to fix a certain mistake, but so far we haven't seen any signs or displays of such foresight yet. We can say that he's playacting perfectly throughout the show, but I doubt it, not to mention that rewinding time makes an entire story tasteless (it renders all consequences mute - pain, suffering, death, happiness; all of them loses their meaning when you can rewind time).

2) Had lived longer than anyone else. This is the one I believe can be true. It fits into the story nicely, and it may even explain his rather lax attitude and even inactivity towards pretty much everything but the deadliest.

Supporting Evidence

Moreover, Professor Port's quote here can be seen as supporting evidence:

"I've believed in Professor Ozpin for many years, and the man's never once let me astray!"

The natural line of thought is that Professor Port was referring to his days as a lecturer under Ozpin, or the older days when he was under Ozpin's leadership as a team, or simply following him around in a party. The point is, is it really impossible to imagine that young Port as a child or teenager, had met Ozpin under whatever circumstances and had followed the man until now? There is nothing to contradict this line of logic (nor supporting it, but I digress).

After all, you had to understand that on the surface, Professor Port seems like the older man and Ozpin the younger. Professor Port seems to be a man who is rather old-fashioned and with emphasis on the old code code of honor and tradition. As we all know, sometimes old people - especially those who had lived through war - just find it hard to admit a younger person to be better than them, and Port had spoken about Ozpin with genuine respect and loyalty. One may even interpret him being angry when Weiss accused Ozpin of making a mistake when choosing Team RWBY's leader.

Of course, it is entirely possible to refute this evidence until further details are revealed. That is something I fully understand, but as I've said, food for thought.

Speculations on How He Became Age Immortal

Really simple and quick. Many have noticed that his eye color changes from time to time for no reason at all. While it may just be a simple animation error, for it to happen frequently enough that people notice and in different colors even, is enough to raise suspicion.

So, the guess: He had fused Dust into his body, or even his soul somehow to prolong his life. The reason he shedded his name is simple: The way and the extent he did it, Ozpin can no longer be called a human anymore despite having a human appearance.

A Little Back Story Speculation

So, during the time when James, Glynda, Port and the other are just teenage Hunters, Professor Ozpin may likely be a pro-war person. Along the way he had somehow recruited them into his party and battled long and hard against the forces of evil. The Grimm, most likely. One may see him as a cruelly tactical person who isn't afraid to make sacrifices to achieve his victory. An Emiya Kiritsugu, maybe?

The end result of that fight however, is victory at a cost too high. So heavy was that burden that it completely changed the man he was into the pacifist he is now. He eventually built Beacon with the aim of bring true peace to the world, and most of his children still followed him. Such examples are Oobleck, Glynda, Port and so on.

However, there are also other children who still believed in Ozpin's original ideology and method, and went on their own ways in hopes to one day achieve Ozpin's dreams of peace. One such kid is Ironwood. He believed that despite having the absolute best of the best Hunters on his side, they did not have the numbers to actually secure a true victory. The end result of the fateful battle had him convinced that relying on just the Hunters will never be enough. If he can somehow even the number games first, if he can somehow produce a separate fighting force not of the Hunters, a force that even normal people can wield, a way that can keep the loss of life to a minimum, or even a way to produce artificial Aura fighters, he believes that he can one day overturn this deficit one day decisively destroy the Grimm once and for all.

And then there are kids who became disillusioned and depressed, and ultimately strayed from the righteous path in order to pursue their own ideology. One such person is Cinder. At the moment, my best speculations of her intentions is that she seeks to destroy the balance of the society of the Kingdoms, whom she sees as the main reason why they had suffered such an irreversible loss at the beginning. Had the Kingdoms had more self presevation, had the people not so clueless and drunk in their own safety and peace, they might have had the support they needed at least to keep someone from dying. So she wants to destroy all the balance and make them recognize the crisis that is the Grimm, and along make them suffer for what she has gone through. If Ozpin is in the way, then so be it - she will take him down as well. Isn't that what he always taught them, to do what is necessary?

Or she may just want revenge and kill everyone. Who knows.