Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-6533159-20151015224111/@comment-26206856-20151017175751

So... the pieces are falling in place and being confirmed. I do kind of agree the op song is a little less than stellar, but it seemed to flow a little better when I just listened to it on it's own. I think the serene imagery at the beginning with the petal had us all travel and think down a different path which gave us the whiplash when the lyrics kicked in.

For a note on the order/ leader thing... I think team strike (STRQ) works well as a tactical strike force for major problems. Though a lot of you see Summer as too shy or un-leader-like, I can see it working. A good leader is one who doesn't cause conflicts with an outlandish attitude, and can keep a calm mind to hand out orders on an intense battlefield. If she truly was/is a mage, the addition of range gives her a better overview of both her team and objectives.

To me, I assume Taiyang is a little hot headed like Yang, Raven seems to get caught up/ emotional when fighting, and Crow just seems like the kind of guy always trying to act cool and measure how others see him. If any of you watched Teen Titans, Summer seems like Raven, who tended to hold the team together and be looked up to whereas Crow is Robin who was leader by name but often got caught up in his own messes. Either could be leader, but I do like the idea of Summer being the one.

Again, the OP seems to be taking on a world view this time around. We get a lot of hints at failures and no 'plot armor' hero to save the day. The way I'm interpreting it at this point is that the school will be overrun by grim, and lots of innocents will die. With such a massive invasion, the hunters will need to split up/retreat and won't be able to save everyone.

"The cost of trusting you is obliteration" At first I thought this line was aimed at Cinder, but I think it's actually meant towards the 'pillars of hope' : the academy/ hunters/ Beacon itself which has been a haven for people to be safe from the outside world. When the walls break, and the grimm cause a massacre, all trust will be lost even though it's something out of their control or capabilities to handle.

"Mirrors will shatter" With this new imagery and song, now I'm starting to think Ozpin has been putting up 'mirrors' to hide behind and 'reflect' a good image of Beacon while he's doing his own things behind closed doors. "Crushed by the weight of the world" means with a large incident, all the other countries will pressure him and break through any and all walls he put up to get to the bottom of his irresponsibility/punish him for failing to protect his people. Keep in mind if it happens during the Vytal festival, it's not just Beacon residents, but residents from all countries in the world that are involved to be hurt/killed causing even more outrage towards Beacon/Ozpin. Ironwood will probably be the biggest threat/enforcer of them all.

"The pillars will collapse in shame" Pillars of hope- each country is a pillar that has a seat on an overarching counsel. With one down, and citizens being skeptical of how well the hunters can really protect them (not to mention any dirt Ozpin has on the others that may come to light) I can sense the counsel falling apart and the entire world plunged into chaos. (Which is kind of what I figured Cinder was after in the first place) The WF may wind up growing as a result, empowering another evil that needs to be taken care of.

"There'll be no rest, no love, no hero to rise above" All the hunters will be on the run, possibly fighting their way through the 'outside world' both from the Grimm who overrun Beacon and the WF. No love would simply relate to all the commoner's hatred towards hunters/huntresses, and with so many overwhelming enemies, no one hero will stand out to conquer the problem - they'll simply retreat into hiding and saving their own skins.

The last part is hard to hear clear enough, I keep hearing 'in the end, the kodachrome' which makes sense with the film filter and flashback and photo... but doesn't fit with the rest of the lyrics, so I'll go off the reddit unofficial lyrics. "In the end, the good will crawl" "the shining light will sink to darkness" Again, the heroes are being forced into the shadows and struggle to climb their way back up. The second part could foreshadow a hunter falling to the bad side under the pressures (maybe Winter?), but it's too early to speculate on anything going that route. "Victory for hate incarnate" means evil won... for now.

"Misery and pain for all... when it falls" Not sure what the 'it' is here. Maybe when the pillars fall, which makes sense, but it seems like the song is on a different topic/doesn't seem to connect. 'It' being the hunter who falls to darkness? Or when 'hate incarnate' falls... which doesn't make sense.

Either way I think this season will be interesting. It's finally going down a darker path, and (hopefully) a lot of connections/ answers will show themselves.