Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-218.101.69.171-20151211221302

Hello. First-time user, hope I've formatted all this correctly. Long post, TL;DR at the end.

So far the tournament has given us some cool fights, but not much to develop the plot. This makes me think that the bad guys are going to attack the tournament.

Why do that? Cinder and her allies appear to be rebels. I think she wants to discredit the establishment ('government, military, even the schools'). Hence the Grimm breach.

The most public moment to attack will be when it's finished and a victor emerges.

It seems that Cinder has also been rigging the tournament matches. We saw her choose Coco and Yat as opponents for Em and Merc. This was advantageous for her team-mates, letting Mercury move forward to the singles round. It's also implied that Cinder set up team JNPR's match against team BRNZ.



(Aside: Cinder probably knew about Nora's semblance. After all, Mercury worked to discover Pyrrha's, which got her added 'to the list'. They could had discovered Nora's in a similar way. Alternatively, the announcers also seemed to know about Nora's semblance, and about Flynt's, even though he's from another academy. Perhaps combatants must describe their semblances to enter the tournament, though they may ask the commentators to keep it a secret. In this scenario, Cinder's hacking may have given her access to such information).



Cinder may have been rigging other games as well. But from what we know for sure, it seems like she wants two people to get to the finals: Mercury and Pyrrha.

Why Pyrrha? Because her reputation proceeds her. She seems to be the best huntress in training. As such, she's an obvious target. If Cinder can make an example out of her in front of a numerous audience, then hunters everywhere will look bad. And that appears to be one of Cinder's goals.



Before we continue, a few guesses about the tournament outcome:

We know from the trailer that Mercury and Yang are chosen for the singles. I expect that Penny will go forward, too (rather than Ciel).

From what we've seen, only 16 teams entered the tournament.



(Aside: that's an average of four from each academy. Not much, but the tournament comes every two years so the 3rd and 4th year students have already had their turn. Given that Glynda mentions 'qualifying' for the tournament, it seems like the academies pick their best young students, and not everyone makes it in. A bit like football matches to decide which teams will be in the world cup).

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">So our last double match will be between Sun and Neptune and, I assume, Pyrrha + 1. Much as I like the dorks, I expect them to lose.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">So going forward to the singles we'll have Mercury, Yang, Penny, and Pyrrha.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">From the episode 6 trailer it seems as though Merc and Yang are the final fighters, but I find this very unlikely. For that to be true, the previous 3 fights must be dealt with very quickly, and Merc and Yang somehow defeated Penny and Pyrrha (though we don't know who fought whom). I prefer to think Port's dialogue was simply misleading.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">I think it's much more likely that Merc and Yang are the first single fight. The other will be between Penny and Pyrrha, and the winners will face each other in the final final.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">My hesitant guess is that Mercury will beat Yang. More interestingly, Pyrrha's semblance will affect Penny directly, to everyone's surprise. The audience may discover what Pyrrha's semblance is, which will upset her. What's worse; they'll also see that Penny is a robot.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">After that upset, I guess Pyrrha will defeat Penny.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">So, Pyrrha and Mercury face off in the final. I've seen it suggested that Merc will defeat her, but I think that's just about impossible, given her semblance and his short-ranged attacking style. I guess the idea here is that Merc can win and then reveal that he's a bad guy and not a huntsman, which goes some way to mock the hunters. But I think Cinder has a better idea: she tells Merc to lose to Pyrrha. All this was foreshadowed by their practice fight.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Why?

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Picture the scene: Pyrrha has just won the tournament and gets crowned the victor. Seems like the perfect time to mention that she's also been selected as a 'guardian'. Thunderous applause. Then everything goes wrong.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The lights go out, the forcefield turns off then turns on again. The stadium shakes. The Atlas robots deactivate or worse, turn hostile (all thanks to Cinder's hacking). White Fang members appear in the audience. (Notice how we keep seeing Faunus?)

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">In the arena, Cinder appears to mock hunters in general and Pyrrha in particular. For the first time, her speech gives us a brief insight into her actual motivations.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">She challenges Pyrrha to a one-on-one fight and defeats her with ease. Behold your guardian, everyone.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">The bad guys escape and the stadium is evacuated in a panic before it falls out of the sky and crashes.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Boom. In one move, Cinder has shattered the public's confidence in Atlas' defences, in their 'guardian' and in hunters and authority in general.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Now I need to admit that I had this idea after watching the first season of Avatar: The Legend of Korra (which is an 'American animé' like RWBY).

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">Also, Pyrrha v Penny and Pyrrha v Cinder are both on my list of fights I want to see. So perhaps this is just wishful thinking.

<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">RT could well do something quite different.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">TL;DR: Pyrrha wins tournament. Bad guys attack. Cinder beats Pyrrha. Stadium crashes. Public no longer trusts Atlas or the Hunters.

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<p style="margin-bottom:0cm">We'll find out more soon. In the meantime, does this sound plausible or silly? <ac_metadata title="Tournament gatecrashing"> </ac_metadata>