User blog:Sorairo/Snow White and Rose Red

As you know, Monty Oum has said that many of the characters in RWBY--especially the main characters--are inspired by fairy tales. Ruby Rose descends from the French tale of "Little Red Riding Hood" which was retold by Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Weiss Schnee comes from the German tale of "Snow White" which was written down by the Brothers Grimm.

However, I also think these two characters come from another fairy tale which the Grimms adapted from a writer named Caroline Stahl called "Snow White and Rose Red." The two Snow Whites are different characters. There is nothing that either of them share in common other than their names and the fact that they get to marry and handsome prince in the end.

I am not sure if Monty had all of this in mind while coming up with RWBY. He may of may not have been thinking about this. This may all just be some good serendipitous conincidence, but anyways, here are some intersting things I found:

Snow White
I started looking into the tales of Snow White while I was looking at the lyrics for "Mirror, Mirror," and I was struck by some of the little references I could see in the show.

The story of Snow White is said to begin with the good queen who was about to give brith to Snow White. She was quite benevolent and just so happened to prick her finger one day whilst sewing. The blood that falls out of her hand drops onto the snow that had been gathering on the ebony windowsill. Already we can see three of the colors that make up Team RWBY: red, white, and black. The queen wishes her daughter to be made up of those colors and, of course, when she gives birth her daughter has the whitest skin, the reddest lips, and the darkest hair of everyone in the land.

Sadly the queen dies soon after, and the king is forced to marry once again. This is the queen that everyone is familiar with and she has with her a magic mirror that she asks everyday to tell her who is the fairest in all the land. The mirror answers with the queen's name for a while. However, this changes when Snow White grows to the age of seven. The queen becomes envious. So envious, in fact, that she turns yellow and green. Interestingly enough, these are two other colors present in RWBY.

As everyone probably knows, the queen gets rid of Snow White. Snow White then goes to live with the dwarves. The queen tries repeatedly to kill off Snow White and fails. On her last try she uses a poisoned apple. Snow White is at first hesitant to eat, but the way the queen persuades her is by eating only the white part of the apple first which was unpoisoned. Snow White unwittingly eats the red part. She then falls asleep until she's rescued by the prince.

So that's the story of Snow White in a nutshell. I see some colors there that are present in RWBY as well as some symbolism which may or may not be present in RWBY. I don't know if white=pure,unpoisoned and red=unpure, poisoned will come into play anyways but who knows?

However, there is another story that is really interesting. I believe that this might be the true origin of Weiss Schnee and Ruby Rose. Of course, I am probably wrong in that assumption, but there are some interesting elements in this story that are just a little too good to be just pure coincidence in my eyes.

Snow White and Rose Red
First of all there's the title "Snow White and Rose Red." If you just look at that, you can see a similarity between the names of those characters and the names of our red and white RWBY main character. Weiss Schnee and Ruby Rose pretty much can be rewritten as White Snow and Red Rose. See the connection?

But anyways, the story starts off with these two sisters living alone in a forest cottage with their mother who is widowed. The cottage has two rose trees: one white and the other red. The two sisters are described as being complete opposites. Rose Red is very outgoing and is the kind of child who loved to run and catch butterflies while Snow White likes to sit at home and help her mother around the house and read stories to her when there was no work to be done. So just from this information, we can almost see some kind of resemblance to Ruby and Weiss. Weiss is certainly not the kind of person who would run and play around and Ruby certainly does seem like a bit of a wild child (though I cannot deny that as a whole, Yang fits Rose Red's description here better than Ruby).

However, even with their differences the two girls have a great relationship. Their life in the forest is idyllic. One particular instance in the story that stuck out to me was when Rose and Snow were sleeping outside. They were sleeping (unknowingly) near a precipice with a steep drop down before being woken up by the morning sun. Upon awakening, they found that they were being watched by a person in a white cloak. The figure simply looked at them kindly and vanished without saying anything. That just screamed "Cliffside Altar" and "White Cloak" in my mind.

Anyways, one day the girls and their mother are visited by a large black bear (once again we have the colors red, white, and black). He requests shelter and warmth near their fireplace. The mother can see that the bear has a good soul and lets him inside the house. He does no harm and even accepts the playful pranks from Rose and Snow who play with his fur. After that night, he visits them daily.

Another day, Rose and Snow are walking in the woods when they encounter a dwarf in trouble. This dwarf is hardly a pleasant creature and never shows any gratitude for Rose and Snow's aid. After a while, Rose and Snow see him being chased down by the black bear who kills him after he begs the bear to eat the girls instead. After that, the bear turns into a prince, and Snow White marries the prince while Rose Red marries the Prince's brother.

So that "Snow White and Rose Red." I shortened the latter half of the story significantly because nothign really stuck out at me. As for the rest of the story, I am just surprised by what I found. The ending was somewhat bizarre because after the bear turned into a prince, he picks Snow White to be his wife. I have no idea why exactly he does that. Though it does seem to resonate with Weiss Schnee in RWBY and how she is and heiress while Ruby doesn't really get much recognition.

Anyways, it's interesting stuff. I don't know if it really pertains to the story of RWBY, though.

Some stuff you can look at:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_Household_Tales,_Volume_1/Little_Snow-White

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/rosered/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow-White_and_Rose-Red

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm