Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-4830106-20130803022158/@comment-7472785-20130816185041

At 1, I think we should avoid to look for any correlations to other fantasy worlds. With the abundant multitude out there, there's bound to be similarities, and every author is subject to  earlier influences - but I believe no similarities are intended here.

At 2, the intro song mentions bloody evolution - that leads me to the thought that pre-Grim and pre-(early) humans were coexisting and a 'normal' competitive evolution began. Than Dust was discovered and started to meke a difference.

How?

Well, maybe the Grim got affected and changed, whereas the humans learned to use it? What the song also  states is that Dust started, enabled, civilization - whatever that may mean in this world. Speech would be a start...

As history mostly is written by the victors, so the definitions of Good and Evil usually are biased and lie in the eye of the beholder. One side may see the other as 'evil' though they simply have a different code of ethics. While one side comes to protecting the weak, seeing they may have other strength beneficial for the community, another may 'mercilessly' exterminate the weak for the future strength of the community (tribe, people, etc.). WE see that as 'evil', but the other side as necessary pragmatism (Not unknown in human history btw, the Spartans for example threw crippled children from a cliff 'for the better of the society and the child' - a child that couldn't become a warrior or wasn't likely to give birth to a healthy warrior didn't have a place in this society - and they didn't see themselves as evil for it!).

At 3 - Grim could be an earlier evolutionary stage. The Beowolves for example do have humanoid traits, but still show a pack behaviour. Another, earlier, form of intelligence. Like Neandertal Man, who wasn't dumb and survived many millenia in a hostile environment got displaced and finally exterminated by the Homo Sapiens Cro Magnum Man. In our world that was resolved in the stane ages - in the RWBY world this struggle may still be ongoing.