Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-34633327-20171216025048/@comment-5430952-20171218054311

ACWeapons wrote: I'm still not sure about Raven's personal stake in all this. She's too contradictory. She says the weak die and the strong live, yet her tribe is full of weaklings. She made a choice to get her power, but did not uphold that responsibiility. Her choice to have loyalties to a tribe that would hold her down more so than her own friends and family would.

What would Raven do if she even got the Relic? Survival is a temporary condition. She has to know one isn't enough, and that both sides won't let her collect all 4. What's gonna happen to the tribe? Raven is the last person I would trust to handle that kind of power without misusing it. How is it going to end with nothing short of Raven and the Branwen Tribe running for the rest of their days in a world consumed with a soon to be global war? And likely this might be Remnant's final "Great War" if humanity can't recover from this. I wholeheartedly agree that Raven's thought processes make little to no sense, if she wasn't so insanely strong the tribe would've outed her long ago, no one's gonna follow a leader who doesn't know what they're doing or where they're going. As for why she thinks the way she does, the best explanation I've heard came from the RT forums, and I posted it on Raven's page here. But here it is again in case you missed it.

[Doublethink. The art of holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time.

A semblance that says 'I want to visit those I love,' given to a woman who has never been in her daughter's life (save as a bird in secret). A wish not to get into the shadow game of the gods, yet she still takes in the Spring Maiden, knowing full well what she is. The ability to turn into a bird is a curse... she is smirking when she at last lands, even for a brief instant, having enjoyed the flight.

When Yang asks why Raven left, Raven approves--she says to question everything. She offers to give Yang the truth, to shape her mindset, but also freely lets her go straight to her 'fool' of a brother whose mindset was shaped by the man she claims not to trust. She warns her that she might not be as kind next time round. She acknowledges her own lack of kindness.

In her mind, giving Yang a choice to walk away makes her better then Ozpin--giving Yang a choice in who to trust makes her better then Ozpin. Ozpin is the chess master who sees people as nothing but pawns. Raven is letting Yang choose her own path... or so she thinks, on some level.

Raven Branwen is a master of doublethink, to a degree that may or may not be literally insane. She may or may not be conscious of this. She's dangerous--not because she can kill huntsmen, that makes sense for her position, but because she can't be predicted. Perhaps, not even by herself.] Something like this anyway.