Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-26226441-20180127223551/@comment-1584449-20180204160504

KingFubuki92 wrote: SomeoneYouUsedToKnow wrote: StickyPhantom wrote:That plus the obvious big red acitvation button for them seems to be PTSD over Pyrrha's death, very difficult and traumatic event for a 16 year old to explore even in the best of circumstances.

But that would go against what the show has told us. Oscar outright asked in frusfration how Ruby can act as if nothing wrong ever happened despite seeing 2 of her friends die in her face.

And Ruby's response is literally that while she was sad about it, she didn't know them very long (which depends on what you call "long". She knew both of them for months).

Well, time frame wise we know she knew them for months, but how much did she interact with them during said months?

Penny I think we can assume she only met with at most five times after their introduction to one another.

1. During the events of Black and White, which lasted about a day.

2. During Team RWBY and SN's investigation, which lasted about a day.

3. Possibly during the School Dance, but considering she had two soldiers flanking her, I doubt Ruby could get near Penny.

4. A wave to one another in Brawl in the Family.

5. Their minute conversation in ''Never Miss a Beat. ''​​​​​​

So while she may have known Penny for Several Months, their interaction makes it more like she spent the equivalent of several days with Penny.

Pyrrha is a trickier situation. True they were classmates and RWBY and JNPR often hung out together, they never really interacted on screen. It's kinda similar to the whole Ruby and Blake thing. Ruby and Blake were teammates and close, but they never spoke on screen to one another specifically after the initiation until ''Volume 5's finale. ''So we can only guess at her relationship to Pyrrha.

Best we can say is, she knew Pyrrha longer than Penny both in time frame and interaction time, but seemed closer to Penny regardless. But with her feelings about "Not knowing Pyrrha long", its more accurate to assume their relationship was the same as two classmates that talk with one another on occasion. When they part ways, you miss them a little but you move on relatively quickly seeing as the most you did with them was just talk.

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As for the PTSD argument, I wouldn't call it PTSD, more just like a mental block. Seeing as the night she unlocked her SEW's could be considered the worst night of her life, it wouldn't be unreasonable to believe her psyche is blocking any desire to learn about SEW as a way to not remember that night. Would also explain why her SEW flared up when Cinder and Jaune charged each other. She immeadiently remembered witnessing Pyrrha die, and the worry that she may witness that again temporarily broke the block and triggered them. So it's not Pyrrha's death being remembered that triggered it, its remembering that night.

To be fair, that night is a pretty bad one for her. Just to go over the laundry list of crap she dealt with on that day:

1. Her sister is put under house arrest after assaulting a student she considered an acquaintance as said sister repeatedly proclaims her innocence despite the contrary, and her team is disqualified in the process.

2. She learns two people she considers her friends to have been deceiving them, and had orchastrated both her Sisters frameup, and were aiming to do something similar to two of her friends.

3. She sees someone she considered a friend brutally murdered by another friend as stuff suddenly goes to hell.

4. She sees someone she admired (Ironwood) possibly die in an explosion on his ship.

5. She witnesses a man (her mortal enemy who numerously tried to kill her, but a person still) swallowed alive in front of her as stuff continues to go to hell.

6. She returns to find her sister having lost an arm and her teammate having been stabbed in the abdomen, and learns two of her friends are still missing, then receives a call from one of them clearly on the verge of a mental break as he tells her the other friend is facing someone who beat Ozpin.

7. She rushes as fast as she can to get to said friend only to arrive two seconds too late and witness said friend impaled with an arrow, the culprit being another person she considered an acquaintance.

And to add to the craplist after the night in question:

8. She wakes up from a mini-coma and finds her sister to be mentally broken after that night, her partner having been dragged home by her abusive father, and her teammate having up and run off for no immeadiently discernible reason.

So, add all that crap together in the course of one night, along with the immeadiet aftermath, add a dash of her being only 16 years old and having an idealized version of being a huntsman, and then throw in the powers she recently learned about having first activated that very night, and you have a 16 year psyche forming a mental block on that night and the powers in a desperate bid to maintain her sanity without gaining PTSD, and any time she recalls a bit of that night she starts to break down, and if she recalls a larger portion of it the powers awaken. At least, thats the Watsonian answer.

The Doylistic answer is that Miles and Kerry suck at writing. after reading your explanation I'd agree that it's more of a mental block.