Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-5430952-20181030033832/@comment-4141313-20181030093029

SpiritedDreaming wrote: I'm pretty sure Cinder was supposed to have the Spring Maiden power, because why else would Salem have given her a Power Stealing Grimm arm? Plus, if Cinder has the Spring Maiden power than that's double the firepower in one person on Salem's side and not Ozpins. And if Cinder were to collect all four Maiden powers, then Salem would have a literal Elemental God under her control in the fight against Ozpin.

Why wouldn't that be the plan?

The part that wasn't part of the plan was getting Ruby and Co involved, as that was purely personal on Cinder's behalf and that is what Watts was talking about when he tried to remind Cinder of the 'plan' during the discussion with Raven. The other part Cinder screwed up was the order in which she enacted the plan.

She did

Recruit Spring -> Tell them to Open the Vault -> Freeze Raven -> Steal Power -> Try to Open Vault Herself

When she should have done

Recruit Spring -> Tell them to Open Vault -> Freeze Raven -> Force Spring to Open Vault -> Once Vault is Open Steal Power

Since she was operating under the assumption Vernal was Spring, why not just let her open the damn Vault rather than cut her off in the middle of it? She could have easily choked her with the claw of hers and forced her to open it, then stabbed her and tried to steal the powers just in case something went wrong, like it did. Cause that way, she would still have the relic and wouldn't have to waste her time on Raven.

Granted its rendered moot since Raven was the real Spring and doing this would have not mortally injured Vernal, but she could just then snap Vernal's neck or throw her other the edge in this case, meaning Vernal wouldn't have been able to distract her and lead to her defeat.

Point being, Cinder jumped the gun.