Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-203.14.52.141-20151216011808/@comment-14909251-20160109200027

Grimmstride wrote:

Anyhow, going back to Summer's death. Jeff Williams said he she was dead, and I believe he was given that information because he needed to write songs. Thus, I believe Red Like Roses II sheds some insight into her death. But that's something others have mentioned before. People always say this and they always seem to be talking about the least convincing thing I have seen in terms of "confirmation" about a canonical story element. Jeff Williams was at a panel and the only time I recall that he mentions Summer and death in the same sentence is to say Red Like Roses Part II is about Ruby's reaction to her mother's death. He clearly struggles with the phrasing of it and it is the only time he actually says anything to the effect of Summer being dead.

Should we presume Summer is alive then it makes sense as anything he might say that fails to treat Summer's death as definite would betray that she is not dead. At the same time, if he says definitely that Summer is dead then he is directly lying to the fans. Williams seemed to be giving himself wiggle room by stating the song is about Ruby's reaction to her mother's death as that is seemingly a true statement even if her mother is alive.

If you listen closely to Red Like Roses Part II or just review the lyrics, you will notice Summer's part of the lyrics never have her talking about being dead. Only Ruby's portion of the lyrics talk about Summer being dead. They have clear points where they could have confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Summer is dead yet avoid that kind of direct confirmation.

When Summer's part says "I don't want you to waste your life in vain" it would not even be remotely inconvenient to say "I don't want you to lose your life in vain" and it would seemingly have Summer saying she is dead as the song immediately precedes that with Summer's portion saying she does not want Ruby to do what she did. Saying "waste your live in vain" is redundant as well, so it seems like a poor choice of words unless Jeff Wiliams had changed it or was avoiding the most obvious word because it would mean saying Summer is dead when she is not.

RWBY has now even given us a reason to speculate about her supposed death by introducing the concept of Maidens. Presuming Summer's name was not a coincidence, then it seems likely that Summer had the power of the Summer Maiden. This allows the writers to hint at Summer being alive without revealing it definitively as her death would presumably lead to her passing her power to someone else. We also have established that Cinder was able to take a Maiden's power through some Grimm technique, giving us a reason to suspect why Summer might have been in danger.

In other words, they can have a character reveal that the power of the Summer Maiden has yet to be found when it should have passed from the previous Maiden. On the one hand, that can fuel speculation that Summer is alive and on the other hand fuel speculation that she is dead, but the circumstances of her death involved her power being taken away by someone else. Not to mention, it allows for the sort of shock where we presume Summer was killed and her power taken, when Summer is actually alive but has been in hiding due to someone attempting to take her power.

Given everything they have established in the universe with the Maidens we now have a plausible scenario for Summer to disappear and not be dead. We know there is a secret order of powerful people guarding the secret of the Maidens because people have previously fought over that power. At the same time we know someone else knows of that power and sent Cinder to take one Maiden's power. One explanation for that is that someone within the order has betrayed them and Summer may have been turned on in the moment, realized this fact, and is hiding because she does not know the party ultimately responsible.