Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-33754845-20190919204913/@comment-34724302-20190920212116

73.Anon.52 wrote: Masma93 wrote:

...used her own lieutnant as a decoy despite criticizing Ozpin for manipulating and using others... kidnapped one of her daughter's teamates and best friends... sold her own brother, daughter and Yang's sister and friends to Salem's subordinates to save her own skin and basically told Qrow that they may have never been family.

1. Vernal is like 16, there's no way she was a lieutenant first, she would have been groomed alongside or just outright replaced the Spring maiden from the beginning, she was decoy and bodyguard first, then she became trusted and irreplaceable, you can tell by Raven's reaction to her death that she did feel bad about endangering her, but you don't just make the sacrifice worthless by revealing the truth of the gambit of a body-double.

2. She barely knew how Yang felt about Weiss, and Weiss was a golden goose, if you want to get technical, Raven was the only one who even wanted to return her home to her family, the only evil thing about it was wanting her "cut" for getting her there and returning a runaway.

3. It wasn't just her skin, it was her tribe's, and Yang's too. Qrow and Yang both made the choice to put their lives on the line and stand in the metaphorical firing range, Raven just painted the target in the background and pointed Cinder to the range hoping to distract her long enough to take the target when she wasn't looking, and it worked.

Lastly, she isn't out there trying to destroy villages... she runs a protection racket, the goal is that people supply her with what she needs through fear and respect, and if they don't, they become the example so that others don't deny her, it's selfish and lazy as hell, but not as intentionally evil as you're painting it. 1) Still it's hypocrital from her because she's doing exactly the same things that she criticize Ozpin for as she was still using Vernal as a shield and unlike Ozpin it was to protect herself.

2) Also since she has observed Yang a lot, including during her time at Beacon, she certainely knew that Yang cared about Weiss and didn't have any reason to be indifferent if she discovered that her friend had been kidnapped.

3) Volume 5 made it clear that it was mostly her own skin that she was trying to protect and that the tribe is only secondary, plus she could have protected both herself, the tribe and Qrow and Yang if she had warned Qrow or Yang about the incoming trap and let Qrow and the others take the fall for Salem's subordinates' defeat so she and her tribe could slip away. Instead she not only risked her own brother and daughter's lives to save herself but also lost her lieutnant's life, caused her relationship with Qrow to completely fall apart and put another strain in her already fragile relationship with her daughter, the all for nothing since the relic wouldn't have protected her from Salem and made her an even bigger target for the Grimm Queen.

Also it was never said that she was running a protection racket at all and being a bandit is Always about robbing and killing villagers or other people who are too vulnerable to defend themselves.