Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-10390252-20130809142349/@comment-50.125.45.239-20130928210049

I have an odd theory pertaining to Nora and Ren's relationship that hasn't been brought up yet.

What if the "ship" has already set sail and they don't know it? Something about Ren and Nora both strike me as being members of very prominent families in Vytal and they're both so ridiculously different I can't imagine any way of them knowing each other except through family connection. How does the Shaolin Monk meet the Nordic Valkyrie when they exist on oppsite sides of their continent (in reference to Earth locations)? I'm wondering if part of their relationship is because their families put them together with intent to bind them that way. While it's not at all rare for the bubble to befriend the honor student for foil purposes, I keep suspecting an abnormality in them even meeting to begin with.

I think that Ren and Nora might have some kind of betrothal in their future and either they don't yet know about it or part of Nora's anxiety with being "together-together" is trying to wrap her head around what her family wants for them. Some arranged marriages put the children together from an early age, which could backfire and either cause them to hate each other when they clash too much or, in Nora and Ren's case, make them attached at the hip and find it hard to imagine each other as anything but close.

It's a long-shot, but the relationship seems to carry an unusual tension for the simple "secret crush" situation. So if that curveball happens to hit home, it would explain a lot in my mind. Part of me hopes for it for an interesting element of development between Ren and Nora and for the others to find out. I can't begin to imagine Ruby's response to finding out that they're going to get married whether they want to be or not. I see it as going along the lines of the usual underdeveloped child freakout something as weird and permanent as marriage, followed by a touch of romantic swooning, then maybe some frustration/despair when she realizes the strain it puts on Nora and Ren who can't figure out how to take knowing they're going to be wed regardless of their feelings.

I could see Nora fighting the betrothal on principle alone even if she was in love with Ren. Ren would accept his duty to his family more than likely and that's what would hurt Nora most about the situation. Regardless of their feelings, she'll feel trapped and she'll convince herself that Ren doesn't like her in that way because he's the dutiful son and she's probably seen him miserably accept his "duty" in the past. In her mind, it would all add up to him viewing this as another obligation, meaning while he cares about her he doesn't feel that way about her.

We judge a lot about the bubbly characters, but they're more sensitive and aware than most people realize. It's mostly due to their habit of misinterpreting signs that make them seem less observant and more foolish. I think that an arranged marriage will have Nora distance herself from Ren when they find out about it or when the time draws near because she wants him to be happy and she believes that accepting his obligations to his family is the same as resigning himself to a fate he doesn't want. Which, when something becomes habitual and regularly seen, why wouldn't she assume he doesn't want to marry her? He probably has great respect and possibly some fear in regards to his family and is afraid to shame them by doing his own thing. No matter how much he cares about Nora, he's going to go "robot" mode and completely detach himself from the topic because it's what he has to do. Knee-jerk reaction causes more knee-jerk reactions. I bet Nora does a lot of her crazy antics for Ren's amusement. She does what he can't so that he doesn't have to.

If the ship does work out that way, and the fan theory of Pyrrha getting into a nasty mess as a result of Nora's recklessness comes to pass as well, it will probably be because of Nora's inner turmoil on how to handle her betrothal to Ren. She'll be upset and worried about her best friend in the whole wide world and get distracted from something important and either hit Pyrrha herself or fail to protect her partner from an attack she could have intercepted. And it will destroy her emotionally. A lot of stress worrying about how Ren feels about her and probably some falling behind with the rest of Team JNPR will come to a head and she'll determine that the only problem with their team is her. A lot of care-free attitude characters try to take on a heavy responsibility of keeping their friends and teammates in high spirits. When something starts to drain on that happy-go-lucky attitude, it starts to affect their purpose and goal and it becomes a noticeable flaw in the group's dynamic until their distraction reaches a breaking point like Pyrrha getting injured and Nora sees herself as completely useless regardless of her track record.

Jaune would be upset and scared for Pyrrha, so he won't think about what he says to Nora when he goes off on her. Weiss will fan those flames and confirm everything Nora is already thinking about herself as truth even if it isn't. Ren will try to support her, but he'll more than likely wind up confronted with a choice of comforting her or telling her the truth about her errors. Most of the characters in Ren's nature and position will choose the truth over comforting because that truth is important and needs to come to light. After being thrown under the bus all day long by others and feeling judged by the whole world for her mistake, Nora will see a final nail in the proverbial coffin and conclude that she messed up so bad even Ren hates her now, even if nothing in his attitude indicates that he blames her for what happened. She'll probably have already been harassed by bastards like Cardin and the rest of Team CRDL and grilled by Glynda and/or Professor Ozpin. The former seems highly judgmental and would reinforce any negative feelings Nora has been having, and Ozpin will be trying to instill a sense of how serious this situation is that will come off as just chewing her out and throwing her deeper down the emotional hole. So when Ren tells her she made a big mistake and needs to reflect on it, she's going to see her best friend turning against her just like everyone else.

The hard part is figuring out how Ruby, Black, and Yang would factor into the situation. Weiss will doubtlessly beat Nora senseless with hard facts that make her seem incompetent and dangerous. To make this ultimate breakdown really happen though, Nora would need to feel like nobody is on her side. So either there will be little to no interaction with the rest of RWBY or the girls are so in shock of the results that they can't help but scorn Nora for her mistake at first. She'd be pretty far gone by the time anybody but Ren could find her and relay that they didn't mean to hurt her further in which point would be the scene Nora breaks down and convinces herself that he blames her too. She'd either try to run away after that or become even more reckless and reject being part of a team. For a lot of warrior types betrayal, even if it wasn't deliberate, can only be atoned with blood. So if Nora were to go for the hyper-reckless, she'd be trying to get herself killed while also doing as much damage as humanly possible to the enemy she goes up against. Anything to show Pyrrha and the rest of Beacon how sorry she is for what happened.

WIth Pyrrha out of the game, Nora would be in significantly more danger between distressing over what she did wrong and the lack of a third teammate to keep her anchored and aimed. The way she's viewed as taking Jaune's orders in the most general sense possible would reach a new extreme where she seems like she's totally blowing him off and only accomplishes the goal without following any sort of strategy more intricate than "hit it, hit it until it dies." The greatest danger to characters who love battle outside of their warrior's way is that fighting is their purest form of expression, so any amount of sparring would be unsafe for Nora's sparring partners as she's either going to have a fit and try to beat them senseless or make her remorse painfully apparent by letting herself get injured.

I think that Ren, through all of this, might miss the root of Nora's problem altogether. He's so used to being close to Nora and always feeling like he knows her that he won't get what went wrong. He probably would have no idea that she's keen on how he responds to his obligations. So a lot of the conflict with Nora will be trying to understand a deeper emotional situation than he's used to seeing. Where the carefree "mind/heart on sleeve" character seems inattentive while they're actually very sensitive, the stoic observant types get comfortable in their ability to "see it coming" which makes Ren more prone to miss Nora's cues than the other way around. He thinks he knows her already, they're in tune and they rarely have to actually say something to communicate their thoughts and feelings to each other. So when Nora shuts him out, he'll suddenly feel at a loss for what's going on and focus on the point where he was cut off. If Ren ever reflects back to before at all, it will still take him time to figure out when she started acting strangely and longer still to deduce what made it happen.

One of the most common side effects of being the smart kid, you tend to be pretty stupid to things that look/feel obvious to the common person. He probably has no inkling that Nora might want him to see her as something more than a best friend. And he is even less likely to realize that, if he has any, there are similar feelings for Nora in himself. It's painfully common outcomes for the smart kid to be completely emotionally or socially inept and unaware of these things. So after everyone gets over Nora's accident that injured Pyrrha, Ren will be one of the last to catch on to Nora's needs and try to tend to them. He more than likely will need a slap in the face from one of the other students. I'd expect either a punch in the mouth from Jaune who's already realized how hard he was on Nora and made it clear that he doesn't hate her and he feels awful for making her feel the way she has for hurting Pyrrha, or a hardcore bitchslap from Ruby or Yang, or maybe even Pyrrha herself once she recovers.

I think Pyrrha and Nora have a similar sense of how batttle might go. Some, but not many, who fight war have a fractured sense of self. They accept that death is a part of war and they steel themselves for it. This preparation makes such warriors terrifying enemies as they're so prepared to die, they assume that every fight is going to end with their death. I think Pyrrha is most prepared to die fighting out of anybody in Beacon which is why she's so calculated. She's ok with dying, but she knows there's nothing worth remembering in a fool's demise. Nora, on the other hand, is just prepared to die one day and accepts that she's going to mess up or be overwhelmed and fall. Doesn't matter to her, as long as the other side has one hell of a body count to show for it. Which, aside from the fact that Pyrrha is quite clearly compassionate and forgiving to those worth it (and would probably apologize for letting Nora wind up in a position to fail), I think it's the mutual warrior's ideal they potentially share that would make her be first and foremost of Nora's aids to coming back from her emotional spiral. And also why I now believe after typing all this that Pyrrha is the most likely candidate to bitch slap some sense into Ren who's still trying to figure out what he did to make Nora shut him out.

I blame my psychology training. I didn't used to type this much about something that should be simple.

TL;DR: I think Nora and Ren might be betrothed already with or without their knowledge or consent.

Nora will have a massive breakdown if/when Pyrrha or another of JNPR gets injured on her account.

Nora will probably shut Ren out thinking he hates her.

Ren will most likely remain oblivious to what's eating Nora no matter how hard he tries to read into what changed until he gets sense beaten into him during a bitter "whatever, I didn't do anything" phase.

Pyrrha and Nora both strike me as characters who see death as a part of life and have different approaches to the same idea that "I'm going to die one day, that's fine, I just need to make it worthwhile."

~Rooker