Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-410526-20161022144159/@comment-25396609-20161025152006

BenRG wrote: Every year, he must be there to welcome the new students... or does he? If his Semblance enables him to manipulate time, then he simply 'echos' his one speech to every assembly. He 'didn't seem to be there' because he wasn't; he was at the first Commencement he ever attended as headmaster several decades back.

If it were, as you say, "an echo" of his first speech, he would not have seemed so distant. That first speech he would have been more enthusiastic about, and by echoing it to every future occasion it was given the speech would be equally enthusiastic.

It is infinitely more likely that he was, quite simply, distracted due to the events unfolding; Salem's spys, Qrow's investigation, whatever the fuck is going on with Raven.

And, although the maiden's were not a thing until volume 3, the in-universe or retroactive explanation regarding Amber's condition and the maidens being hunted.

Nothing timey-wimey about it.