Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4141313-20181110034633/@comment-4010415-20181115152627

Yeah, basically, Cinder's speech was designed to make people suspicious of Atlas, while also casting uncertainty about Mistral. This is something that some people didn't get about her speech... whether they said "Her speech was stupid and didn't make sense" or "Her speech was genuine, and she's trying to open everyone's eyes." It was manipulation, to add onto the part of her plan where she turns Atlas' robots against civilians, making it look like Atlas attacked Vale. The whole point was to demonize Atlas, and it probably worked pretty well.

I can only imagine that the plan with Mistral was to let people think that, since Lionheart is a Faunus, he was actually working with the White Fang for Haven's destruction, thus giving people more paranoia and hatred toward the Faunus. But it didn't work out that way, thanks to Cinder having RNJRWY, Qrow, and Oscar show up at the school, on top of Salem getting mad enough to kill Leo.