Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-26417457-20190905232433/@comment-14909251-20190914220949

ChishioKunrin wrote: ^^^^^^^^

In Volume 5, she was back out on the field, and she was determined to regain her pride and feel powerful again. I believe that's why she couldn't resist changing Salem's plans in favor of trying to get revenge on Ruby. It also may be why she got so aggressive with Jaune for trying to take her down. To her, he's just some kid with a mere sword and shield who only completed one year of Huntsman academy, so why the hell could he take down her - someone who's in her 20s who not only has experience wielding raw Dust (something most Huntsmen don't bother going through the extended training to do), but also straightup has magical powers. It was insulting that this ant tried to stop her.

I feel that maybe this is overlooking a more important aspect. Cinder feels understandably threatened by Ruby. She questioned working with Raven's bandit tribe as well and she wasn't wrong. For all the talk about Cinder sabotaging Salem's plans by going after Ruby, it was really Salem who was misguided in suggesting they work with Raven. Maybe Salem had some other intention there, but the real reason they failed is because Raven outplayed them. Hell, it was her idea to have an ambush be part of the plan. I suppose Salem could have known about Raven's teleportation ability and realized a frontal assault could make it difficult. Either way, Salem's plan was flawed from the outset.

You can argue pride and wanting to feel powerful are part of it, but her questioning of Salem isn't unreasonable. However, even with all that, she doesn't seize a golden opportunity to kill Ruby and instead favors completing the mission. Of course, she may have figured she could save that for after getting the Relic. Though, he current action is not too dissimilar. Cinder isn't trying to directly defy Salem's plans, but constantly looking for wiggle room. Despite everything, she puts some form of loyalty towards Salem over her own interests. Her current plot is the furthest she has gone in defying Salem, yet she stills worms it around in such a way that she can convince herself she is still technially following orders.

Her pride and power are clearly not all she cares about, even if it is a major motivator. I mean, all her subordinates show some level of loyalty to Salem, but that doesn't change the significance. Cinder also doesn't show any disloyalty to her own subordinates. There is something of a difference with Salem, who is almost certainly deceiving every last one of her subordinates about her true intentions. Also fair to say she is plainly manipulating them to use them as tools and couldn't care less what happens to them. Not sure this can really be said of Cinder and her relationship with Emerald.