Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26273984-20150403165446/@comment-14909251-20150504213804

I think the difference is that we know Yang's mom is actually alive and with Summer her death is not entirely clear. We obviously presume she is dead, but there is no indication that there was a body found and presumably there wouldn't be either way. Just because we already appear to have one dead mom does not mean we cannot have two or three (everything about Blake's stated background screams orphan). A big part of Snow White's story is having a dead mom and in Beauty and the Beast the girl does not seem to have a mother either. One common thread with RWBY is that they all kind of come from broken homes, but also have various differing experiences and were affected differently. It is what distinguishes them from each other the most.