Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-107.130.236.19-20160224003834/@comment-27350660-20160620182914

Well, I've just finished a story on her and Yang, and when you're writing, you get to pick. So I've taken some liberties. Still, I like to stay compatible with canon at least. Which means I hope not to contradict anything that we know from the series. I also accept that my stories come with a sell-by date. I hope we'll see more of Raven in Season 4, and when we do, I'll probably turn out to be wrong in some of my guesses. These are just my thoughts on Raven Branwen.

So who's Raven with? I think Raven's a loner. I also think she opposes Salem, because otherwise, Qrow would have nothing to do with her. But to give her those "opinions that I (Qrow) don't necessarily agree with", I made her an anarchist. She's disgusted with the way Humanity's fate is being directed, and if Salem wants to bring the whole power structure down, she's welcome to do so. Except... Raven does want Humanity to survive. Her end game therefore is to have the big players fight each other to death, and then finish off the winner. Then humanity (and faunity) can sail towards a new future where nobody is ruled by others.

I also turned her into a bit of a harpy. As an anarchist, she values strength. Strength of character. Intelligence. Proficiency with weapons. She has no patience with displays of weakness, or self pity. (And oh boy does Yang get a dose of that *grin*). She's got a will of iron, and near-absolute self discipline. She respects hard work.

As for skills, I'd put her in a league above the likes of Qrow, Winter, Ironwood. Maybe she could take on Cinder in her current form, but she probably wouldn't choose to. Neo took one look at her and noped right out of there. I'm expecting some really hard hitting powerplay from Raven.

As much for a bit of comic relief as anything else, I've made her awkward in showing affection. It's also consistent with the rest of her character, because to show affection to someone, you need to lower your defences against them. This contrasts wonderfully with Yang, who is much more affectionate, often hugs people, and is pretty tactile.

Anyway - forgive me my post-story-posting rambles. If you think I'm totally missing the plank on some of these things, please feel free to pile scorn on me.