Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20151129182644/@comment-14909251-20151130232814

A few points:


 * Mercury and Emerald winning was obvious more because they clearly need to be in the finals for the story to progress. The fact Cinder can control the biomes and the fighters, who they have thoroughly investigated, means pretty much every match defaults towards their preferred outcome. It does raise an interesting question about SSSN's match as the set-up there would seem to favor SSSN losing, but they just barely managed to win.


 * Qrow concealing the image away from Yang is admittedly not something I thought about, even if I sort of noticed it. While the possibility is that Raven's identity as Yang's mother is meant to be a secret, there is another reason for him to hide the image away. It is possible that Qrow read an action report or debriefing of the girls after their fight on the train and realized Yang recently met her mother in person. Up to this point all Yang had was a seemingly grainy photo that may not have shown her mother's face. Were Yang to look close at that photo Qrow had she would know exactly who it was who saved her on that train without any doubt. Him pulling it away may mean he didn't want her to make that connection. This goes into the theory that Raven is on some undercover mission for Ozpin same as Qrow is out being a spy and he pulls the photo away so that Yang doesn't risk blowing her mom's cover.


 * I think summoning effectively confirms the White Trailer happened for real and that the Knight was a summon. This would, in a sense, match up with theories about her father mistreating her. When the Knight just suddenly appears, Weiss appears shocked and is injured. More likely than not it was her father who had summoned the Knight and that means he was controlling it every step of the way. It also would suggest her father just suddenly attacked her to catch her off guard. So her father really would be the one who gave her that scar, though not with his own hand.


 * Winter suggests Weiss respond to their father cutting her off by giving him what he wants. That to me suggests that is what she did when he cut her off and this is part of the underlying conflict that makes Weiss feel alone. Even though Winter acts like a mother, she is supposed to be a sister to Weiss. Instead the sibling she would normally want to play with and stay up with all night on bunk beds, is the one telling her to "do what your father tells you" and giving her strict instruction on various matters of life. Her idolozing Winter is probably going to fall apart at a certain point if Weiss continues defying their father and Winter becomes more insistent on her doing what their father wants.

I have to wonder what her father will eventually do if Weiss doesn't start towing their line. No way is he going to stop at cutting her off financially.