Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-43917568-20191103144559/@comment-34589375-20191103181926

Ozpin is immortal via his parasitic reincarnation, if Ruby, or someone else under Ozpin's command, can destroy Salem the answer should've been along the lines of: "Wait for the chosen SEW to be born and guide her to destroy Salem".

Otherwise, I agree the formulation of the question was stupid. I can only forgive Ozpin if he was mentally unstable at the time and didn't yet know about the three question limit every 100 years. If he asked: "Explain the different methods I or someone else can defeat Salem in great detail, starting from the least efficient method to the most efficient." he would have had a working strategy for his war.

At least we know that Salem is unkillable in battle (she regenerated from ash; even after the Brothers are summoned they'll probably let her live), so petrification or getting Salem sealed is one possible solution. But Salem wants Ruby captured alive for some reason when she had other SEWs assassinated, and I don't think Salem would risk Ruby living if she is not highly resistant to holy disintegration/petrification; maybe she wants Watts to experiment on Silver Eyes powers. Since Salem is significantly more powerful than a maiden sealing her is unlikely, unless the heroes abuse the power of a relic or something..

Personally, I think the whole thing will be won by diplomacy. Remember that Salem's curse applies until she learns the value of life & death. If she does she stops being immortal, and probably becomes less evil too. If she didn't lie to her subordinates, she doesn't want absolute destruction, but to create a new world order, so a compromise is possible.