Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-4830106-20130810030606/@comment-11188061-20140705145553

BenRG wrote: MetallicArcher wrote: Besides, child soldiers is something we should have been expecting. Blake looked like she already was 17 in the Black Trailer but think about the fact the White Fang turned to violence 5 years before the beggining of the series: 17 - 5 = 12. For Blake to fight like she fought in the trailer they likely started training her as soon as they turned to violence. Whilst the child soldier thing should not be surprising, given that Blake was evidently fighitng for some years as a mid-teen, I also suspect that there is probably a cultural difference on Remnant. Remember that the Grimm evidently very nearly drove humanity (and, likely, the Faunus) into extinction. In such a scenario, any person old enough to hold a weapon would have been drafted and, yes, that includes 10-18 year olds.

There's a little difference.

One, there hasn't been a serious Grimm invasion in many, many years. The Faunu-Human Wars is the best supporting evidence to this statement: if the Grimm was a serious threat, no one would be crazy enough to start a war when everyone's in danger of being mauled to death. So there isn't an actual need for the Faunus or Humans to let all of their kids train since young. They have a choice for other occupations now other than everything onto military and survival.

However, it is still a prominent culture for both races - as we can see, Ruby has been training to be a Huntress since very young (she's fifteen and she's used to mauling Beowolves), so we can say that Humans too have 'child solders' - the Huntsmen and Huntresses in training.

This is probably especially true for Faunus, who likely have trained themselves since very young. Although the young ones obviously aren't much use in real battle, given that Menangarie was invaded not too long ago and they barely squeaked out a victory against a population-dominant Humans, it's not just the White Fang - even the normal Faunus would have children fighting, if they're forced into a war.

Although of course, the White Fang are pro-aggressive and even if they're in a time of peace, they had their children participating in fights as well.