User blog comment:SomeoneYouUsedToKnow/SYUTK's V5E12 - OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN - Impressions/Recap/@comment-26397825-20180111030423

I was so disappointed in Hazel's reasoning. He is literally the pettiest character in the Villain side so far.

His little sister goes against his wishes, jumps into a dangerous job, and is noobish enough to be killed on a training mission. But instead of blaming the people with her at the time - the supervising teacher (if there was one) or her teammates - he blames the person only peripherally involved. The only thing Ozpin would have had to do with Gretchen is that he accepted her into Beacon in the first place. Otherwise she would have simply been another student at the school, and he doesn't really interact with normal students. Only special ones like Ruby and Pyrrha.

Huh. I just had a thought. A lot of people are speculating that Hazel and Gretchen allude to Hansel and Gretal. In the original story after they're captured by the witch, Hazel is kept in a cage and 'fattened up' for eating later, while Gretal is put to work basically as a slave. Hazel tricks the witch with a chicken bone into thinking he wasn't getting fatter (since the witch was blind and couldn't see), and Gretal plots in the background. I don't remember the exact happenings off the top of my head, but I do remember that at the end of the story the witch gets locked in her oven while the kids flee.

One could draw parallels here - Salem is 'fattening up' Hazel with lies about how Ozpin is to blame for his sister getting killed, and poor Gretchen was the ignored one. The difference is that Hazel fell for the witches ploys in RWBY whereas Hansel was clever and managed to trick her about his weight until Gretal tricked her into checking the oven temperature, which allowed Gretal to give her a swift kick up in the arse and lock her in the oven while the children escaped.