Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-27107623-20160131201802/@comment-104.158.213.213-20160215092835

Could be. I have something of a pet theory in this vein:

Ozpin is the wizard that gave the original 4 Maidens their powers. He is semi-immortal in the sense that he doesn't age due to magic (can still probably be killed though). Originally he was very aloof or uncaring about the affairs of mankind until meeting the maidens. Meeting with them kind of brought him out of his shell and somewhat restored his faith in humanity and he gave them the powers of the seasons in gratitude for this.

The Maidens at some point used the power given to them to try and help mankind fight back against the grim. This gave humanity a bigger edge than just dust and aura. It is possible this may have also helped humanity clear grim out of larger areas and either found or expand the settlements which were precursors to the four kingdoms. This caught the attention of Salem who is either the creator of grim or simply controls them (and is either a humanoid grim or a human/grim hybrid herself) and has the goal of killing off mankind for some reason.

 Salem realized in the long run that with the Maidens' help and being able to establish large permanent settements humanity would gradually become more and difficult to wipe out. Having large, secure population centres and bases of operations makes a pretty big difference. Salem started trying to direct the grim to off the Maidens and whispering about how to obtain their powers to greedy people. After a few close calls Ozpin found out about Salem's manipulations and took more direct action to try and protect the Maidens. Over time Ozpin became increasingly involved with and invested in protecting mankind and it gradually evolved into something of a proxy war between him and Salem.

 The Maidens or their successors at some point decided  to remove themselves from the public eye because humanity was strong enough to fend for itself and because they wanted to avoid people after them for their powers. Over time the 4 Maidens became forgotten only to be remembered as a legend. In the present day Ozpin's stint as headmaster at Beacon is currently his latest way to influence humanity and indirectly protect them against Salem.



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As for Ozpin being weaker than a Maiden it is possible that he gave away a good chunk of his power to them and isn't as stong as before. It may also be he was able to give a stronger power to other people than what he himself was capable of.

Ozpin and Salem may have also known about each other before Ozpin gave the maiden their abilities, but Salem left him alone since Ozpin wasn't interested the affairs of mankind or what she was doing.