Nora Valkyrie

Nora Valkyrie is a student at Beacon Academy and a member of Team JNPR. Her weapon of choice is Magnhild, a war hammer that can transform into a grenade launcher.

Appearance
Nora has short orange hair and turquoise eyes. Her clothing seems to be a mix and match of some sort, with different colors and different themes. She wears a collared black vest that ends at her waist. Under the vest are two layers of clothing, colored red and light blue respectively. She also has a white sleeveless top that forms a tiny heart/love shape with a white detached sleeve on each arm. She wears matching fingerless gloves on each hand. She uses violet eyeliner.

She sports a pink skirt that starts at the waist and ends mid-thigh. Her shoes are a mix of pink and white with pink laces. She also seems to wear some sort of armor that begins in the middle of the shoulder and neck and ends by the waist. It seems as if there are two axes on the armor as well, but the "axes" extend all the way around her waist and appear to be quite flexible.

Personality
Nora is a bubbly and cheerful young girl. She displays boundless enthusiasm and never fails to let it show after spending her first day at Beacon. As a result of this excitement, she has a tendency to talk in circles as shown in their first official appearance, during her conversation with Lie Ren when she repeatedly mentioned being together with Ren but not in an intimate fashion. She reinforces her excitable attitude when she is shown jumping on the bed in the middle of a conversation. She has a rather peculiar imagination and asks Ren if he can imitate a sloth so that they can find each other in the Emerald Forest during the Beacon Academy Initiation. When Ren pointed out that sloths probably didn't make a lot of noise, Nora was quick to point that out as the strength of her plan, since no one would suspect them of working together.

Even in combat, Nora retains her joyful personality, but she is seen to stay focused when actually fighting. This is shown in Episode 8, when she and Team JNPR battled a Death Stalker, during which she fought while grinning and laughing, only dropping her smile twice; once when their path was cut off by the Nevermore, then later when Ren was thrown into a stone pillar by the Death Stalker.

Despite her generally cute personality, Nora does seem to have a love of battle, and may be a little vicious, as her solution to help Jaune with Cardin's bullying is to suggest breaking Cardin's legs. This is also evident in Episode 8 when she quickly reacts to Jaune's desire to help with the Death Stalker by launching him across the gap in the bridge with little or no concern for Jaune's reservations.

She also appears to enjoy telling stories. In episode 11 she is seen entertaining teams RWBY and JNPR by telling them about a recurring dream she has been having. It should be noted that she apparently exaggerates to make the story more interesting, as Lie Ren somehow knows what actually occured in her dream and corrects her whenever she begins to stretch the truth.

Abilities and Powers
Nora wields a dual-function weapon named Magnhild. Magnhild can transform into one of two weapons, a grenade launcher and a war hammer, which Nora uses proficiently in combat. She uses the grenade launcher form for ranged strikes on her opponent. When using the hammer form, she is a lot more versatile in close range attacks and movement. Nora uses the recoil of the grenade explosions fired from the face of the hammer to propel her certain distances or to add force to her strikes. In Players and Pieces she used the recoil of her hammer to launch herself from one end of a broken bridge to the other.

Her ability to easily carry and use Magnhild in its hammer form suggests that she possesses a high level of strength. She may also possess some form of enhanced speed, as seen where she appeared from one place to another.

It may have been intended as a gag, but Nora is seen to float in Episode 13.

Trivia

 * "Nora" may be an abbreviation of the Greek Eleanor or Eleonora, meaning light, or the Latin Honora, meaning honor. Nora, alternatively spelled Nóra or Norah, is also a given name in several European languages.
 * Her last name comes from the Valkyries of Norse mythology, female warrior servants of the gods in Valhalla. This could also indicate that her name is derived from the word "Norse".
 * Nora's symbol is likely a depiction of Mjölnir, the legendary hammer of Thor, the Norse god of thunder. Further lending to this allusion is her weapon, Magnhild, a large hammer, whose name is also derived from Old Norse.
 * It may also be a reference to Marie Mjolnir's eye-patch from the Soul Eater franchise, with Marie's weapon form being that of a hammer.
 * The idea for Nora's weapon also stems from a video of a Mexican tradition where explosives are hit with sledgehammers.
 * Just as Ruby has a pair of headphones adorned with her symbol, Nora has her hairbrush stamped with her own symbol.
 * Nora was the third member of Team JNPR revealed in the series, first appearing in Episode 4, as well as the last to have her weapon revealed, in Episode 8.
 * Nora was one of the last students to be paired up during the Initiation, the other being her partner, Lie Ren.
 * Her love of pancakes is on par with Ruby's love of cookies, both are able to eat one in one bite.  In Forever Fall Part 2 Pyrrha said that they didn't have any syrup for their pancakes because of Nora.