Talk:White Cloak/@comment-24113789-20131211143828

Alright, this time I am going to actually state my entire theory exactly and then actually shut up about it, instead of... that other thing I have been doing.

Red Like Roses Part II talks about an event which takes place in the future. I mean, look at Ruby. If she has lost anyone, it has no impact on her life right now. Why would they write her entire song about something which no longer affects her? "All of the joy that I had known for all my life / Was stripped away from me the minute that you died!" This is not something that you simply let go, yet Ruby's cheerfulness is clearly sincere. Everything in the song is completely inconsistent with everything we know about her so far. Think about her conversation with Blake. "Ever since I was a girl, I wanted to be just like those heroes in the books... someone who fought for what was right, and protected others who couldn't protect themselves!" ". . . Unfortunately, the real world isn't like the fairytales in the books." "Well, that's why we're here, right?  To make it better." This worldview is completely inconsistent with feeling that her entire life is "like a movie, but there's not a happy ending / Every scene fades black and there's no pretending / This little fairytale doesn't seem to end well / There's no knight in shining armor who will wake me from the spell!" It simple does not match up. Therefore, Summer Rose dies in the future.

If that is the case, then as we know it right now, Summer is still alive. So who is she?

The trouble with this one is that most of our evidence is literary, rather than "solid". That said, the real question is, Who could cause the loss we see in Red Like Roses Part II?

My first thought was Qrow. But my brother pointed out that the death of her uncle would be upsetting, it would not be as bad as to write her entire song about it.

Could it be her mother? Well, so far she has never even mentioned her mother specifically. She once said, "My parents always told us to help people," but that does not specify her mother. I got the idea that Ruby's parents were never really that involved in her life. They let her wander around a big city with a high crime rate all by herself. Not that this is really a problem, I mean she can take care of herself.. but that would mean that, while the death of one of her parents would be very upsetting, it would probably not cause the complete and total breakdown we see in RLR2. She went to a boarding school for much of her life. She can heal. Besides, Yang could help her through it.

So what if Yang died?

Now that definitely would cause a change in Ruby's attitude. The thing is... the death of Summer Rose is not just this thing that happened a while ago. It is Ruby's identity. This is who she is.

I also have some random miscellaneous support. "To have you in my life was all I ever wanted." Being with Summer is more important to her than becoming a Huntress. It is likely that, subconsciously, she wanted to go to Beacon because Yang was going. She thinks it "so much more romantic and coolness and fchgyah!!!" because Yang is doing it, and Yang is cool. I tend to feel that way about what my older brother does. "Red like roses / Fills my head with dreams and finds me / Always closer / To the emptiness and sadness that has come to take the place of you!!!" Ruby feels like everything she does -- everything she has ever done -- slowly made it happen.

"I'm forever / Always by your side." "I'm close by.  I'll stay here.  Through all things, I will be near."  "How could you leave me when you swore that you would stay?" "All the times that I swore that I would stay / Now I'm nothing but a liar and I've left you in the fray." Need I say more?

I have to say, while this is technically speculation, it just seems to have such an abundance of support, so that I have trouble finding another explanation for everything. I may be wrong, but I will have trouble accepting that something with so much literary evidence could be completely wrong. I am not even just hanging on to my theory because I came up with and I don't want to be wrong, since my brother actually came up with it and in doing so invavlidated the theory at the time and somehow managed to convince me. I will not say "I AM RIGHT AND THE LOT OF YOU ARE NOT SMART" but I really do not think anything will make me let go of my theory except future plot events.