Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26397825-20170730020549/@comment-4010415-20170804234838

Phazefox wrote: 1) even if it was a retcon that doesn't make it less true, retcons are retroacitve, i'm not saying dust can't be manipulated with aura or other methods. i'm just saying that what cinder did/does has been shown to be mostly from maiden powers,

2. a good example of this is the delayed explosions she makes (when the floor lights up and then goes boom), she only started using that after getting that first half of her maiden powers.

3. though i still think the dress must have ALSO had some kind of material to make the weapons with, as fire dust will only make fire, heck it could have been earth dust for all we know, make some earth/sand, superheat it and mold it into weapons, why not?

4. ruby saying cinder's glass wasn't her semblance i think should be taken with a grain of salt, ruby is a huntress-in-training and you can't really expect her to figure out an opponent that easily

5. furthermore, cinder was shown using glass proyectiles during the fight with amber, there was no indication whatsoeevr that she was carrying dust on her, and she used the sand melted/superheated by amber's fireballs.

6. i just think it's more likelly cinder in particular didn't 'cus she can use the maiden powers for it instead, so why bother carrying dust?

1. But the very fact that the Maidens were not an idea that had been added to the story yet at that point means that, at that point in time, that was fully intended to be Cinder just manipulating Dust the way that literally everyone else can. These days, it can be explained with Maiden powers, but back then, it was fully intended to be regular old, everyday Dust use.

2. She made explosions like that with arrows while fighting Amber. The only difference afterward is that she can make them without arrows, but even still, there's what I said in Point 1.

3. Fire Dust is red. Her clothes glowed orange. We have seen that orange Dust exists in the Dust shop From Dust Til Dawn, in the Dust case that Roman got in Players and Pieces, and in the volcanic biome in Amity Colosseum.

The leading theory is that orange Dust is lava, which would explain the black glass swords that Cinder made, as lava can cool into black volcanic glass called obsidian. There's also the fact that, in the pilot episode, that first shot that Glynda blocked splattered onto the ground and even had a "splatter" sound effect, as if it was liquid.

Fire and lava have their own advantages and disadvantages and can be used in different ways, so it's not like it wouldn't make any sense to have both types exist in RWBY.

Though, the regular glass that she shot at Ruby in the CCT was different from the black glass she used for her swords an arrows. Not only was that glass not black, it was also made by her throwing some kind of powder into the air from a cannister and then using the Dust in her clothes to heat it. That powder may have been sand, or it could have been earth Dust (which was white in volume 2, before they changed white Dust to being air in volume 3).

4. There was literally no other reason for Miles and Kerry to have Ruby say "I don't think that was her Semblance" than to tell us, the viewers, that it wasn't her Semblance.

5. Actually, Amber did not superheat that sand. We see Cinder jump over Amber's fireball and then slide across the ground, and the dirt gets kicked up into the air by Cinder. She then reaches out in front of her, there's a flash, the designs in her sleeve are suddenly brighter, and then the dirt in the air melts into glass. Cinder did that herself.

6. Out-of-universe, because Maiden powers didn't exist when volumes 1 and 2 were made. In-universe, I guess because she only had half of the powers, so using Dust was easier and more effective for the time being. Notice that, when she made a black glass bow and arrow to attack Pyrrha in End of the Beginning, the designs on her clothes didn't glow, which means that, in that instance, she was, indeed, using the Maiden powers for that.