Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4141313-20181208003742/@comment-4141313-20181214022436

AntisocialMedia wrote: Roman was basically a non-combatant, though - he had a weapon, but it seemed to be very much a last resort. The students seemed to find it weird that Jaune, at 17, hadn't unlocked his - surely it would be that much weirder for a huntress to become legend without doing so? Remember though, Maria made a point to mention that the newer generation is stronger than the older generation. Maria is from two generations prior to the students, and one prior to Qrow's generation. It would be unreasonable to think that the percentage of semblance users was much lower the further back you go.

Its kinda like the Quirkless situation in My Hero Academia. At the beginning of the story, Midoriya says he is part of the 20% of people without a Quirk, thereform making them Quirkless. But stories from when Quirks first appeared, and later, flashbacks from 200 years ago, show that the percentage used to be much higher, and that it only decreased with each passing generation.

Not to mention, we have no idea if Maria even attended a Huntsman School, or was even officially Licensed. No one knew her real identity, so a License seems kinda unneccesary, and the schools only came into practice 80 years ago, and if Maria is indeed 65, they'd only been around for 15 years by then, meaning it isn't unreasonable to think that she was one of the few to still get strong without attending a school, like Emerald, Neo, or Mercury.