Talk:Salem/@comment-37168446-20190310005512/@comment-35434444-20190527110752

The black pool of alignment reassignment is confusing to me.

Salem was already plenty evil and resentful before, so the only thing it really explains is her appearance. It's RWBY's equivalent of Emperor Palpatine screwing up his own face by getting his lightning reflected off of Windu's lightsaber. I don't see how it has any significance to the plot unless it gives her some cool powers and is the reason she can control the grimm.

The only motivation that makes any sense to me is that Salem wants to kill Ozpin once and for all as an act of compassion and acceptance of Ozma's original passing away. (Please please please give her the relics so she can do that, RT. Otherwise this plot and build-up doesn't make a whole lot of sense.)

Not only do I think she will succeed, but in doing so, she'll break the curse placed on her and pass into the afterlife to join him. It's the only way I can see to resolve the stalemate and satisfy everything that was set in motion by the Lost Fable.

The only thing this conjecture does not account for is why she feels the need to produce grimm to wipe out humanity.

Salem started out resisting change in defiance of the gods. Not she's forwarding change in defiance of the gods; following their will as a result of believing that she is opposing it.

From Hell's heart, she stabs at the god of light by thwarting Ozpin's mission to rectify the human race, and doing that means undermining their efforts to expand and develop wherever possible and wrest possession of the relics away from Ozpin so that he can't take advantage of them or use them to summon the gods.

In effect, she's using her sway over the grimm and their destructive impulses to her own ends the same way that Ozpin is felt to be using pretty much everyone around him as pawns because he won't let them in on his real identity.

If the black pool really does make her insane, then the heroes have no hope of winning because she will never learn her lesson.