Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26281589-20131112205848/@comment-226878-20141014040107

Again, even if Ironwood and Glynda were his students, they, with him, could still have been the "first Hunter team." Which, also, if Ozpin is the creator of the Hunters tradition, then likely, the "rule of four" (like the Sith's rule of two) was created by him also, explaining why every official team we've so far seen (i.e. RWBY, JNPR, CRDL, SSSN, CFVY, and even TQYS) have four members. We have been "told" that Cinder and her two followers are apparently from separate teams (whether that means that Mercury and Emerald were not on the same team is still in question) and we've also been "told" that Cinder appears to be only about 10 or so years older than the girls, or, more precisely, "in her 20s". We've also been told that Cinder apparently mostly only looks young due (arguably, to makeup and a healthy diet and) to, uh... "moisturizing."

I've proposed before the idea that Cinder, much like Ruby, could have been an early inductee to a team, a child prodigy, as it were. The most likely candidate (now x'd from the list) would have been Qrow's team, but as we know that Cinder not Yang's mother, we should propose a different team. I'm personally okay with assuming she is much older than Monty would have us believe and that she was the last addition to Ozpin's team, rounding out the four rule he would set down "in stone"... as it were. This is mostly because it makes determining her origins that much simpler. If, like some others have argued, she is merely related to Ozpin or that mysterious fourth member (ahem * Dorothy *), she would still require her own team separate from Mercury and Emerald. Presuming still that no one has ever deviated from (Ozpin's) rule of four just like (aside from Ozpin) no one has ever deviated from the naming rule, then Cinder's team is missing three members and Mercury and Emerald's team is (duh) missing two.

Assuming that Cinder was worked up as the original antagonist, given that Roman was a one-off originally not intended to return after the "Yellow" Trailer, I have to wonder how the team originally thought they would introduce the sorceress. Neo was obviously also not a character intended to be. So the concept of where she and Roman will end up (and just where the hell did she go? Will we see her in Mountain Glenn in next week's episode?) is just kind of up in the air. But what's got me genuinely curious is will RT apply the rule of four to the non-hunter characters? Will Roman acquire two extra henchmen on par with Neo? Will Junior hire an extra bodyguard (and will it be another girl)?

Time...