Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-3257939-20131108051639/@comment-174.108.90.31-20131108171627

I had a different take on it. Imagine for a moment that we switch the roles in the original story, so that Cinderella is evil and her stepmother/stepsisters are good. Now consider that Ruby and Yang consider themselves sisters, but have different last names and appearances. It's more than likely that they're stepsisters, either by marriage or adoption. Now we have "Cinderella" vs. two stepsisters.

As for the stepmother, that might have something to do with Qrow's message to Ozpin, "Queen has pawns." There's clearly some kind of alliance between several different groups, and we don't know the gender of the current leader of the White Fang, so the "Queen" could be referring to this leader, who therefore could be considered the "stepmother".

It should definitely be pointed out that Cinder does not appear to be a faunus; however, during the battle, none of the White Fang members had any tails or other outward signs of faunus heritage, either (although they were wearing helmets.) There might be some slight chance that for some reason, Cinder is a faunus without animalistic ears. (Or maybe humans cut them off; it actually sounds possible when you think about it.) But then Torchwick wouldn't have been so condescending of Faunus in front of Cinder like that.

Here's a thought: maybe Cinder is still the mother of Blake, but a Faunus was the father. Keep in mind that Cinderella defied her family and social convention and ended up with "Prince Charming." And Blake said she was born into the White Fang.