Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20151129182644/@comment-26397825-20151130235729

This could also be why RWBY curb stomped ABRN. Yes, they are probably stronger than ABRN, but look at what half of the playing field was; ice. Weiss's prefered Dust, and the one she has the most experience with, and therefore one that the rest of RWBY will have more experience with. And Yang's all about that fire, right?

I propose that Cinder paired RWBY with ABRN, a team that they were just a bit stronger, and then gave RWBY the advantage with the fields of Ice and Fire so that they would win, and it would make RWBY seem like they were much stronger than they really are. The reason for this would be overconfidence; Ruby and Yang seemed to be under the impression that it was because of their team that all crime in Vale stopped when they caught Roman. Perhaps this went to their heads, and they didn't train as hard as they needed to (I'm not saying they didn't train at all, just not as hard) because they had that thought in their heads: "We're practically full Huntresses already."

This means that they aren't as strong as they could have been by this time in the year, which makes things easier for Cinder and her group because RWBY are the ones who have been the biggest thorn in their side. Make RWBY overconfident, they slack off a bit on their training because they see themselves as practically full Huntresses already, they curbstomp ABRN to reinforce this idea, and all the while Emerald and Mercury and Neo and Cinder are still growing stronger because they're still pushing their limits whenever they can, still training when they have the chance (off screen).

This subtle bit of manipulation takes power away from RWBY, simply because of their own hubris, and makes the gap between Cinder, Emerald, Mercury and RWBY that much biggewr, which means Cinder's plan has a higher chance of going off with a smaller hitch than otherwise.

As for the SSSN vs NDGO fight...well. Maybe Cinder didn't really care? I mean, she gave NDGO the home field advantage with the sand...but who's to say she didn't also give the home field advantage to SSSN? Mistral seems to have a lot of water surrounding it, and may even be built on the side of that large inland sea over on that landmass. It worked out that there was a sandy area for the Vacuans, and Neptune could use it effectively as well because of his goggles, a pirate area for the pirate themed characters to fight on, which worked out perfectly for Scarlet to use against Gwen, and tropical islands for the one with the crazy plans....even if those crazy plans backfired on Sun and got Scarlet taken out of the fight.

I'm just saying it was a pretty even matchup, all things considered. And the main problem SSSN faced was they were technically down a member - Neptune is afraid of water. That's not exactly something he would advertise, so Cinder might not have even known when she set the field to the sea scene. She just wanted to see a pretty even fight, and didn't particularly care which team actually won; but now she knows Neptunes fear and can use that against him at a later date if he proves to be a problem, such as if he keeps hanging around Weiss and RWBY.

But that's just two theories, which I thought of.