Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14909251-20170522044827/@comment-34633327-20170709103324

ChishioKunrin wrote: There's also the fact that the Kingdom of Mistral is home to some pretty sketchy towns that are full of criminals and host to black markets. Why wouldn't the White Fang HQ be in one of those towns?

And we know for certain that the WF HQ is in Mistral because of Hazel. Salem told Hazel to meet with Sienna, and where did we see him next? A train station in the Kingdom of Mistral.

That said, I kind of doubt that the WF HQ is in the City of Mistral, aka the Kingdom of Mistral's capital. Surely the Council wouldn't allow it. The City of Mistral is where Sun will have been living while attending Haven Academy. Exactly. Anima is a large continent with Mistral being the main focus of it, but as Volume 4 and the World of Remnant demonstrated, plenty of towns are able to operate under the councils radar. The entire design of Oniyuri was to be a new city out of the Council's reach that would one day become its own kingdom. While the Capital/Mistral itself is considered the safest and most governed, there are plenty of groups that operate under the radar. Abandoned Towns like Kuroyuri and now Shion are perfect places for groups that can survive the Grimm to set up shop, as most avoid those areas. Even the Mistralian Soldiers that picked up RNJR and Qrow said no one had been out near Kuroyuri in years. With the Knuckleavee now dead, that area is another location for "low lifes" to set up shop. Since these villages are all under the radar, news about them wouldn't be as mainstream. While Oniyuri's obscurity may be due to it not getting finished before the Grimm showed up, the fact it is compared to Mountain Glen would make it seem like a bigger deal, unless most don't know about it. Nora didn't even know about it despite (presumably, as her background is still mostly a mystery) growing up in Kuroyuri like Ren, whereas Ren knew it because Ann and Li both supported it. So the White Fang setting up shop in one of the undoubtedly many abandoned villages as their HQ would be not known to the public, especially since anyone who does discover them would most likely be killed. With that in mind, Anima, more specifically Mistral, seems a safer place to go than Sanus/Vale, where White Fang activity is well known.