Talk:Cinder Fall/@comment-35585801-20180514171634/@comment-4010415-20180515010230

We're not fleshing out Salem for RT.

Quote from Qrow, in A Much Needed Talk: "Salem's smart. She works from the shadows, using others to get what she wants, so that when it comes time to place the blame, we can only point at each other. She's trying to divide us - humanity, and so far she's done a pretty damn good job."

This tells us


 * Her plans set up situations where people point fingers at each other for what happened, rather than pointing at her, the Grimm, or an unknown source.
 * She wants to divide mankind.

Quote from Salem, in End of the Beginning: "Your faith in mankind was not misplaced. When banded together, unified by a common enemy, they are a noticeable threat. But divide them, place doubt into their minds, and any semblance of power they once had will wash away."

This tells us


 * She recognizes that mankind is harder to defeat when they band together against a common enemy.
 * As such, she seeks to divide them.

Cinder's speech in PvP:


 * Places doubt about Atlas in people's minds by questioning why they would have a robotic soldier disguised as a young girl.
 * Makes Ozpin look bad by questioning what he's teaching his students, for them to end up with the scandal involving Yang and the incident with Pyrrha accidentally tearing Penny apart.
 * Implies Ironwood may have had less-than-positive reasons to bring his army to Vale by using language with negative connotations (in other words, speaking about it in a way that makes it sound bad): "Or perhaps this was his message to the tyrannical dictator that has occupied an unsuspecting kingdom with armed forces."
 * She brings Mistral into it: "But I know the existence of peace is fragile, and the leaders of our kingdoms conduct their business with iron gloves. As someone who hails from Mistral, I can assure you the situation there is... equally undesirable."
 * She claims that the kingdoms are on the brink of war and hiding that fact from their citizens: "Our Kingdoms are on the brink of war, yet we, the citizens, are left in the dark."
 * And she ends it all with "So I ask you: When the first shots are fired... who do you think you can trust?"

It definitely seems like that speech was designed to place doubt, uncertainty, and distrust in people's minds, in regards to other kingdoms and even their own governments.

As for Salem choosing to have Beacon fall during the Vytal Festival, why else would they do it at that time? The worldwide live broadcast allowed everyone in the world to see and hear about what was happening at once, causing mass negativity that attracted Grimm to the kingdoms. Why else did Cinder have Mercury livestream the chaos on his Scroll? The fact that the entire world was gathered at their TVs, watching the broadcast, was tied into their plan.

Miles and Kerry even had Lionheart talk about it in Welcome to Haven: "Vale wasn't the only Kingdom to suffer that night. Everyone was watching. Every house in every Kingdom saw that poor girl ripped to pieces, saw monsters crawling over the city, Atlesian Knights attacking citizens... and then nothing. You could feel the dread in the air. With all that negativity, you can imagine what it was like when the Grimm came for us."

As for Salem dividing the kingdoms in order to cause death and destruction, this was implied all the way back in World of Remnant: Kingdoms, narrated by Salem herself: "Yes, the world of Remnant is indeed a dangerous place. But the four kingdoms stand as beacons of hope, as safe havens from the darkness that surrounds them. They are the key to mankind's survival, as long as they stand united..." This was followed by the lights representing the kingdoms being blown out. In other words, as long as they're united, mankind can survive, but if they're divided, then mankind is in trouble.

We're using what Miles and Kerry have inferred through the things Salem and other characters have said.

In regards to Salem just sitting around thus far... She was only just properly introduced in Volume 4, and the events of Volumes 1, 2, and most of 3 were originally intended to be one season. Volumes 1-3 were only the prologue, hence the Volume 3 finale being called End of the Beginning. So, technically, we're actually not very far into the story yet.