Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20151213162620/@comment-24147441-20151224210401

@Spiegelmeister Get ready for a wall of text!

''' The villains can manipulate the matchups so risking a Neo/Yang conflict isn't going to happen unless they want it to. '''

''-Exactly. And they don't want it to because they have other plans. Like I said, Yang fighting Neo at the tournament would be problematic because Yang would probably recognize her and tell her teammates, then they would get suspicious, and then Cinder would have to worry about RWBY trying to sniff them out. Cinder does not need that kind of drama.''

 '''CME are always seen together, and Neo is just kind of there on the side. She's not even really Cinder's henchman; she's Torchwick's accomplice, so we haven't seen any sort of true connection between the two other than the possibility of Cinder going 'hey, we just locked your boss up but we need you to help us fight in the 4 on 4 and round out our team. '''

''-I doubt that Neo is only “Torchwick's Accomplice.” She might be his partner in whatever team set up they have, but its pretty clear that they are all working under Cinder. To be honest, we haven't seen much interaction between Neo and Torchwick either. She bailed him out in “Painting the Town” and they were both on the Train in “Breach.” That's about it. ''

 '''Neo by nature is a very loose cannon that poses an issue of slipping up in some way. She almost killed Yang, and the kind of murderous intent she had in curbstomping the 4v4 guy would pose a risk if she went any further. By nature, she has a murderous intent. '''

''-They all do. They're villains – they're supposed to have murderous intent. Amber is clinging to life because of Cinder and both Em and Merc actually killed a man. ''

 '''As far as keeping viewers out of the loop, that is true, but good writing should have SOME sort of foreshadowing to hint at it. Maybe they think the sound is good enough, but we should have seen more interaction (whether directly relating to the plan or not) between Cinder's gang and Neo. '''

''-There's quite enough foreshadowing already tbh, in fact, the reason we are having this discussion at all is because we're all trying to interpret their foreshadowing. And you're probably right about how they should have interacted more, but that would kind of ruin the suspense in a way. Neo doesn't speak, she's always behind the scenes – even in the episode where we saw Cinder, Em, Merc, and Torchwick interacting altogether, she wasn't even mentioned. Seems like she does a lot more backstage work as opposed to making herself known.''

 '''True, we are far from over, but if she's on about the same level as Mercury who is above the students to begin with, and he uses his power, why wouldn't she feel the need? '''

''-Well, Mercury hasn't used a semblance either. The only thing we've really seen him do is that wind-bullet-tornado-kick he's been doing, and that was confirmed to be Dust related. Even during the surprise Grimm invasion, Emerald did not feel the need to use a semblance. They probably don't think they need to use it. There's no rule that says that characters MUST use their semblance.''

 '''<span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(255,255,255);line-height:0.23in;">Jaune is a special circumstance. He is the ONLY one going to a hunter's academy that doesn't know what a semblance is and how to use it because he SNUCK in. We have no evidence to support anyone else trying to be a hunter/huntress doesn't know what a semblance is or doesn't have access to at least part of theirs. '''

<p align="LEFT" style="border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;">''-I know. I wasn't suggesting that Emerald didn't know what a semblance was. I was suggesting that she MIGHT not know what HERS is. Which I doubt. I really just think that she's not using it because she doesn't feel the need to. ''

<p align="LEFT" style="border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;"> '''<span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(255,255,255);line-height:0.23in;">The mind glare is for intimidation which threw Yang off her game before she even started. The blocks, the redirects, the kick to the ground, the throw up to the ceiling... it's all pretty hard to imagine Yang did that to herself, and even harder for Neo to be watching and somehow position herself correctly to align those physical hits. '''

<p align="LEFT" style="border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;">''-I doubt that. There was definitely some semblance action going on there. It wasn't suggested that Yang was hitting herself, it was suggested that Neo used her semblance to make Yang see a fight that was not happening, or at least partially happening, or maybe even used it to predict her moves, which is why she had the upper hand in their match. Watch the episode again, that was not just intimidation. Yang physically felt something happen to her head. She looked like she got hit with a mini migraine. And then she was off her game for the rest of the fight. ''

<p align="LEFT" style="border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;">''Notice how many times Neo's eyes change color during that fight. I think that the changing of her eyes reflects how her semblance is used. And I'm not sure what, but it definitely might have had something to do with how Yang got basically creamed. They also changed from green to brown/pink before she was going to stomp that poor kid's face in.''

<p align="LEFT" style="border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;"> '''If Neo is hiding in the stadium, good for her. The problem I have here is her semblance would have such a large range that it becomes very over powered especially if it effects multiple people instead of focused on one'''

<p align="LEFT" style="border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;">''-Its quite possible that we could have an overpowered villain on our hands. It would up the ante for the protagonists in a way though. But the point I was trying to make with the stadium bit was that she could be sitting up close towards the front row, where she would be as close to the combatants as possible, if her semblance does have some kind of range restriction. ''

<p align="LEFT" style="border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;"> '''<span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(255,255,255);line-height:0.23in;">Why would she even bother confronting anyone or showing her face if she can create an illusion from halfway across the stadium? '''

<p align="LEFT" style="border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;">-''That's just it. She hasn't. We have not seen hide or hair of Neo since Round 1. But there are illusions happening. ''

<p align="LEFT" style="border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;"> '''<span style="font-size:10pt;color:rgb(255,255,255);line-height:0.23in;">Cinder leaves because she likes to show that she already knows the outcome and is so full of herself that she has all the confidence in the world to know nothing will screw up her plans. '''

<p align="LEFT" style="border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;">''-That's true, but there are some fights that she sticks around to watch. I went back and re-watched the episodes to see if there was any connection between Cinder's leaving her seat and the illusions happening, and I couldn't really make one. It seems that she gets up to leave AFTER a match, if we do see her at all. “Fall” was the only time she left her seat BEFORE the match started that I saw. I just find it suspicious.''

<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;"> '''As far as best ways, it's been 3 seasons. We've had all the intros and the story starts now. I think we can start to arrange the characters to see how they fit from now on.'''

<p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom:0in;border-style:none;border-width:initial;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;orphans:1;">''-We really can't though. There is still so much that we don't know and things are still being revealed. It would not be smart to go jumping to conclusions. ''