Talk:Yang Xiao Long/@comment-71.185.48.239-20170311160415/@comment-173.49.195.106-20170417101419

Because it wasn't confirmed (nor clarified) and never has been. It was an off-hand comment made by Lindsay Jones (not the CRWBY or even Yang's VA) in 2014 and it has never been brought up or mentioned in canon proper nor confirmed anywhere else. The manga (which CRWBY stated was "canon until it isn't canon") currently seems to imply that Yang is protective of her hair because it made Ruby happy, which fits her character so far as I'm concerned.

As I stated up top, it seems extremely weird to me that Yang's Semblance would have an additional and entirely arbitrary drawback to it, on top of the fact that she has to take damage to use it. Tying her ability to effectively use her Semblance to the length of her hair hampers her in a way that nobody else is. Blake could still shadow-clone even if she was missing an ear. Weiss could still use her Glyphs if her fingernails had been clipped. It just seems incredibly random and unneccessary when her Semblance already has a huge weakness, but I'll admit stranger things have happned in the world of RWBY and this could eventually end up being confirmed.

I personally hope not though as I feel that Yang's having her hair as a berserk button is far more meaningful and interesting if it's based on sentimentality or just plain ego (you damaged something of hers that she values, now you die) as opposed to her needing to protect it because it's some secret Achilles (Pyrrha's?) heel. Yang can be reckless but I don't think she'd be so reckless as to have a major weak point to her entire ability to fight on display the way her hair is where anybody in a fight could slice a chunk of it off either intentionally or by accident. Ideally, she'd braid it and then pin it up the way other characters have their hair pinned, keeping it close to her person. ...Unless she's going for the reverse psychology of "hide it in plain sight" which admittedly, I wouldn't put that past her because Yang's not dumb and understands, at least in part, how to manipulate the way people perceive her.

Tldr though, it hasn't been confirmed inside or outside of canon yet and Lindsay, so far as I know, has never clarified what she meant by that particular comment. She could have simply meant that Yang's Semblance is expressed through her hair (which visually, at least, it is), or that Yang channels the extra power she absorbs into her hair purely for storage. Not that the strength of her Semblance is dependant upon the length of her hair (a la the actual Samson tale), which we know is at least slightly not the case (Taiyang stated the amount of power she can dish back is assumably at least twice as much as what she's taken).