Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-24934890-20181008004211/@comment-26018514-20181017202857

SomeoneYouUsedToKnow wrote: If you really need to wonder after it was spelled out to you, you're simply not paying attention.

Nora loving pancakes or "penchant for capital punishment of those who hurt her friends" (which only happened once in the entire show), that is not depth, that is merely personality.

Nora being an orphan has, so far, led to basically nowhere since as far as we've seen, she simply happened to just be there when Kuroyuri got attacked, and we never got anything about her beyond "Ren saved her and she fell in love with him". Meaning that even that part of her backstory orbits around Ren.

What do we want? We want Nora, to have character and motivations, that are not centered on Ren or have anything to do with Ren. If her backstory is shown, then we want to see something that has nothing to do with Ren, like whatever the hell she was doing before she landed on Kuroyuri.

For example, have her parents have been Atlesian engineers, have Nora want to learn more about Atlas and machines because of that. Something that has no Ren on it, something that Nora likes and wants and isn't motivated or influenced by Ren in any way.

It's perfectly simple, perfectly easy to understand, and if you don't get it then that says more about you than the ones who spell it out to you.

1. I have yet to see any specific thing you would change or get added out of removing her relationship with Ren.

2. and that is how much less personality known than any of the characters without relationships? My entire point with this line of questioning is: "how does Renora take away from the characters writing something that we would hear if they lacked a relationship?" We'd get less, not more.

3, 4, & 5; But 3. tells us everything we need to know about her motivations, She's been an orphan almost as long as she can remember, this means her primary motivations are likely Security, shelter, social acceptance/love/human connection, and food. Ren has provided/helped provide most of this during her lifetime.

Career Goals she is unlikely to have because as you yourself stated she is not especially smart, so engineering, business, etc. are likely out as far as jobs for her, and again anything that takes her away from Ren(and thus her primary needs/motivations fulfilment), are likely things she wouldn't want to pursue.

There is really only one way she might have another motivation(other than some random neurosis), and that is if she remembers her family being something beyond poor within an economic sector she can re-enter.

6. RWBY's writing in general could always be better, but Ren and Nora are probably the best written characters in the show for their level of importance to the narrative, and their relationship doesn't take away from their written personalities, if anything it explains more that can be inferred than RT should waste time writing about.