Talk:Whitley Schnee/@comment-107.221.242.206-20170125213906/@comment-141.134.109.210-20170126170837

To answer this question we also need to look at Whitley's and by extension Jacques characters. At least the little we know of both. They haven't exactly gotten a lot of screentime or bonding time with the audience.

Personally I think Aura and Semblance would be too tempting for them to not learn. If Schnee's are supposed to be the best in everything then surely Jacques would stimulate his children to use Aura and Semblances. Of course there is a difference between learning how to do something and making it job related. A business man like Jacques and perhaps Whitley could decide to learn it simply to learn it or to have it as kind of emergency plan. They both don't seem to like being out of control and having a decent aura and semblance control certainly helps as an ace to regain control in certain unexpected situations. Of course Winter decided to join the military and Weiss decided to become a Huntress, both things that wouldn't help running a company at all (maybe military a bit with organisation, but Winter made it clear she wasn't interested at all with running the company). Bettering oneself wasn't the part Jacques didn't like, it was the part where they neglected the company in favor of those things that made him oppose them.

Some people seem to think that not liking to fight is the same as not wanting to learn how to use an Aura or a Semblance. Probably due to the fact that so far everybody with a Semblance is a skilled combatant. We haven't seen for example a normal shopkeeper using a let's say fire related semblance to cook food with it. Aura and Semblances seems to be more will related requiring more mental than physical practice. Would I want to learn how to fight? not particulary. Would I like to have some kind of self-healing factor/personal forcefield and an additional summoning related superpower? That sounds a lot more interesting, especially if training them doesn't require spending hours in the gym so to speak.

Based on that I think the will/interest to learn Aura and Semblance defenitely was or even still is present in Whitley. However Weiss does seem to imply Whitley being jealous of herself and Winter for her abilities.

I personally believe him when he dismisses her claim about the physical abilities. He does't look like a fighter type and he clearly dislikes Huntsmen and huntresses their line of work. However she might have hit true when refering to the Aura/Semblance part.

Truth is it could have gone a few ways. Either Whitley became so demotivated that he would never get to be the boss of the company due to his sisters that he simply said "screw it." I doubt Jacques would have allowed this though.

Second option: He became super motivated to prove he was actually the right choice. It's annoying to combine homework with physical exercise, the same could be said with learning the stuff needed to run the company and physical exercise. However Aura/semblance is more mental exercise so Whitley could have kept that going. In this case he might actually be a formidable combatant. A lot of people seem to think that somebody wth Aura/Semblance would be helpless against Huntsmen or Huntresses. I agree the hunters got the advantage, but if you use your Aura/Semblance good and you have a large Aura reserve then you could still win. A tank can be used stationary and nobody questions their effectiveness, but a person with good Aura and Semblance control can't win without moving or going into melee combat and doing fancy tricks? I am not saying it's easy to do, but it's not as impossible as some may say, especially if you are a summoner. Those guys use their powers most efficiently if they just summon minions and stand back, whilst letting their minions do the work and perhaps giving a bit of support for their summons.

Third option: He tried but either he doesn't have the gene, maybe he got Jacques semblance instead if the man has one or simply got nothing. If semblances are genetically then it is possible that he was born without. Or he for some reason got the short end of the stick and ended up with a very low Aura reserve and by extension a weakened Semblance.

Note: Personally I think it would be funny that should he have a weakened semblance, he is capable of summoning maybe a small Nevermore that he calls for example "mister White" or "Twinkles" or something like that. Just a side thought.

Those are just my thoughts though.

-TheShadowOfZama