Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20141031002615/@comment-25218054-20141106040703

Ok, here's another take on what Cinder's real plan might be...

First of all, Ironwood's responses to everything in the series so far appear to have been easily predictable by Cinder. The fact that he brought so much military force for the Vytal festival was directly because of the Dust thefts and White Fang involvement in them (Ironwood himself confirmed that in ep 2). Given Glynda's comments about how he ALWAYS reacts that way, Cinder could easily have guessed he would. Also, the majority of that force consists of his brand new Knights and Paladins - also predictable, IF Cinder knew in advance that Ironwood had them and was ready to reveal them, which - since she actually aquired several Paladins and gave them to the Fang - we know she must have.

Why is that relevant? Because, if the Paladins haven't been deployed officially yet - which is what Ironwood said in his speech to the crowd in ep 3 - the only place Cinder could've gotten them FROM is the place where they were developed and built. Which suggests she has one or more of her people inside that facility. And if the Knights are produced by the same facility, then anyone with enough access to steal entire prototypes of the Paladin should also have access to the master computers they're using to PROGRAM the Knights. So it could easily be that all the Knights have been compromised long before Ironwood brought them to Vale.

Now, how does the events of eps 11-12 fit into this? For starters, both Cinder and Torchwick - especially Cinder - have been depicted as meticulous planners. If your plan is to have a train ram a buried-and-concrete-reinforced gate and have the soldiers in the train cars jump out and attack what's on the other side of that gate, the very first thing you do is run simulations/calculations to make sure the train will actually get THROUGH the gate and far enough out the other side to avoid having all those soldiers trapped in the tunnel when it collapses behind the locomotive. To my mind, there is no possible way Torchwick wouldn't have done that beforehand. That means having all the White Fang fail to get out and die to either the tunnel collapse or the Grimm chasing the train was all part of his plan. So what did they accomplish? They made it LOOK to everyone in Vale like that was their plan and they only failed by luck, solid workmanship by the people who sealed the tunnel and whoever stopped the Grimm that did dig their way out of the tunnel and into the city.

BUT... it was also easily predictable WHO that last would be. Ironwood's troops were all in those three ships hovering around Beacon, ready to deploy immediately because Ironwood is so gung ho - the only thing that had stopped him from sending them out was that he didn't know where to send them TO yet. So it was obvious that the Atlesian troops would be first on the scene if a sudden attack broke out in the middle of the city. So the entirety of Vale sees that the Grimm & Fang got past all their defenses only to be stopped by the Atlesian military.

Now, this happens right before the Vytal festival. The Council can't cancel the festival (too much loss of face), they can't have an attack during the festival (even worse) and this last attack got right past the defenses of Vale, so they now have lost faith in those defenses. Plus there's not enough time to radically shift around their own military. So having Ironwood and his shiny new and apparently very effective Knights handle the security is the obvious choice... which, if Cinder really does already have a back door into them, means Ironwood will actually be deploying HER troops all over the city with the Council's blessings.

So that leaves us with Cinder having control whenever she wants it of all the Knights that will be surrounding the Vytal festival, the spectators and the majority of the politicians of Vale who will undoubtedly be in attendance. Will she take all of them hostage? Hold them there while she loots something somewhere else? Use them to get rid of the majority of the Hunters that are the most powerful military assets Vale has and will be competing in the tournament? (She WAS having Mercury evaluate Beacon's most promising students like Pyrra for weaknesses.) Or is she actually working for someone else (hardliners in the Atlesian government who want to take over Vale, maybe)? We'll know more in another season or two.