User blog comment:Zathronas/Speculative author: Who is Summer Rose?/@comment-16241789-20140809065916

Oh boy, Summer Rose. This should be fun.


 * Cracks knuckles*

Right, first off, I don't think that the statue in Beacon is Summer, mainly because I think the statue is from the Great War, which I am fairly confident was several generations ago (Jaune's great-great-grandfather was a combatant. Summer is Ruby's mother, not ancestor, as far as I'm aware).

Second, I want to talk about Summer's gravestone for a bit. A general consistency with most cultures is to worship heroes; if someone makes a big sacrifice for the greater good, they are usually celebrated as heroes. Well, that's what we'd like to think, at least. I think we can assume that Summer made a big sacrifice, leaving her young daughter, among other things, alone in the world, to stop some evil threat (probably some surprise Grimm attack; maybe the Hunters and Huntresses made an expedition to hunt down the Grimm, woke a whole bunch up, and Summer had to do something drastic to keep them at bay?). So, if she made a big sacrifice, why isn't she honored? Yeah, she gets a gravestone, but it's overlooking a cliff in-between a fairy tale forest and absolutely nowhere. So maybe she made a big sacrifice, but it was for a pretty stupid reason that the Hunters and Huntresses didn't want to expose (perhaps the scenario above where they go looking for a fight and kick a hornet's nest, and they don't want the public viewing them as warmongers who'll bring the next apocalypse through their meddling?).

Now, I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent for a bit and discuss Cinder, since you mentioned Red Like Roses Part II. This next bit is very much theory (along with quite a bit of wishful thinking) and goes under the (flawed) assumption that Cinder knew Summer. I'm going to go one step further and assert that Summer was something of a mentor to Cinder, and maybe a bit of a motherly figure.

With that assumption in mind, there's a distinct possibility that Red Like Roses Part II might also apply to Cinder as she grieves over the loss of her trusted mentor. If that's the case, then there's an interesting parrellel that can be observed between Ruby and Cinder. Ruby is young and naive, extremely thoughtful, optimistic, and generally a good person. From what we've seen so far, she's handled Summer's death (a death that Red Like Roses II asserts haunts Ruby's dreams [Red like roses fills my dreams] after confirming that "Red like roses" is blood) by basically burying it and moving on, maybe even using the sacrifice as inspiration to help people. Cinder, on the other hand, being older, more mature, and probably very jaded, holds on to it and uses it as a driving force to propell her towards her objective, that objective being getting payback against Ozpin for burying the sacrifice of her mentor and friend (referring to the first big paragraph). This is all, of course, speculation, again mixed with a bit of wishful thinking, as that theory leaves a lot of unanswered questions (why does Cinder react the way she does [with a sinister grin] when she comes across Ruby, the daughter of her mentor? What happened to Cinder's team [somewhat confirmed via a slip of the tongue from Monty during Episode 2's Afterbuzz interview]? Does Ozpin know about Cinder?).

Now, back on track. I'd assume that Summer has a nurturing personality, but I'd also like to think that she knows that her kid is going to have to learn to fend for herself in case something tragic does end up happening.

There's also the distinct possibility that Summer was a complete prick who was hated by basically everybody because she had a really cold and calculating personality (she defers to ruthless calculus when justifying leaving her young child alone in the world, as it would save more lives were she to make her sacrifice), and she was so loathed that after she sacrificed herself, they gave her a token grave in a scenic location and moved on (this theory could work with Cinder not knowing Summer and having a completely different motivation), with Ruby occasionally visiting the resting place of the mother that she never really knew, left with nothing but the knowledge that her mother sacrificed herself for the greater good, which would in turn be an example to the impressionable Ruby and lead her to become a huntress. Ruby buries the sadness at her mother's passing, but doesn't grieve that much, as she barely knew her.

So yeah, my speculation is all over the place. Sorry about that (also sorry about the fact that this comment is utterly massive). But I am going to laugh when it turns out that none of this massive chunk of text turns out to be true. I guess we'll just have to see...