Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-108.225.172.36-20160228081252/@comment-1839918-20160228134737

Officially, right now, she is dead. But that doesn't mean there is no hope. M&K said that they will not confirm character deaths on an official level, and that what they show in RWBY is all the info they'll give. Even so, plenty of characters that are confirmed dead later come back, with one big perpetrator being RvB, another RT show. They can't very well DENY someone's death.

And one major rule in fiction that I've learned is that if they go out of their way to leave no physical evidence of death, there's a good reason, even if it doesn't mean that character's return. Remember, we still don't know about the list Cinder put Pyrrha on in Vol. 2, and I doubt it was just a hit list, otherwise she would've killed Pyrrha right after becoming the Maiden instead of letting her flee with Jaune.

I'm hopeful for her return, but right now she's considered dead unless proven otherwise in Volume 4 or beyond. However, unless the writers flat-out say it won't happen, and there's still more to the story, there's always a chance, however slim it may be.