Glyphs[1] are the hereditary Semblance shared by the members of the Schnee Family. The known users are the sisters Weiss Schnee and Winter Schnee, and their mother Willow Schnee.
Description[]
When the Schnees use their Semblance, they create a flat glyph which has a variety of effects, from moving to conjuring avatars to creating Dust formations. The Glyph has the same design as the Schnee snowflake family symbol. Different effects have different Glyph designs.
Glyphs can be used as a solid shield or barrier, as seen while Weiss fought the Boarbatusk in "The Badge and The Burden, Pt.2". Glyphs can also be used to accelerate objects both through the air and over surfaces, as seen in "Players and Pieces".
Glyphs have a variety of effects on objects, monsters, and people. They can be for propulsion, as they have the ability to control motion, with the basic Glyph type exerting push forces on other objects and acting as a solid surface. The appearance of said objects changes with different types of Glyphs, three examples being her Time Dilation Glyphs, Arma Gigas Summoning Glyphs, and Queen Lancer Summoning Glyphs.
One variant of Glyphs, called Time Dilation,[2] speeds up actions[3] and is the result of mixing Lightning Dust with the Semblance.[4] Glyphs are also able to confer these enhancements upon other people, as seen when Weiss enhances Blake's speed during their fight against the Atlesian Paladin-290 in "Painting the Town...". A black version of the basic Glyph, which exerts pull forces, appears to result from the use of Dust, as evidenced by Myrtenaster's Dust chamber revolving in the "Volume 5 Weiss Character Short".[5]
In the RWBY x Justice League comic, it is revealed that Weiss' Glyphs can be used as a power source, presumably through centrifugal energy, as she was able to restore the power to Victor Stone's cybernetic body parts by replacing his Dust batteries with a Glyph.[6]
Avatars[]
Another application of Glyphs is Avatars. According to Winter in "Lessons Learned", members of the Schnee family are able to summon avatars of foes that they have previously defeated in combat and bring them to fight for their side. It is likely that this only extends to Grimm, as those are the only such foes whose avatars have been used.
Weiss Schnee[]
Weiss' Semblance, Glyphs
Weiss often uses her Glyphs for propulsion, as they have the ability to control motion. Using Myrtenaster, she modifies these Glyphs by changing which Dust vial is in use, giving a wide variety of effects. In the official board game, RWBY: Combat Ready, she can use her Semblance as a "Deflection Glyph".[7]
Image Gallery[]
Summoning[]
In "Lessons Learned", while helping Weiss practice summoning, Winter instructs her to think about foes that caused her to push past who she was and become who she is. The foe that Weiss concentrates on is the Arma Gigas she had previously defeated in the "White" Trailer. As time goes on, she makes slow progress summoning it - from a tiny sword in "Lessons Learned" to an arm and a sword in "Heroes and Monsters" to the full avatar in "Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back", albeit much smaller than the real one.
In "Tipping Point", Weiss accidentally summons the Boarbatusk she defeated in Peter Port's class using her Semblance, marking another non-deliberate summoning, though this time of a full-bodied creature.
In "Dread in the Air", it is revealed that avatars can also teleport via Glyphs and react to events outside of Weiss' field of view, suggesting a degree of autonomy or that Weiss can perceive the world to some extent through the perspective of her avatar.
She can change the size of her avatars, either shrinking them or make them grow to their true size, as seen in "Unforeseen Complications" and "Lighting the Fire".
In "Downfall", Weiss summons the Queen Lancer she defeated in the airship battle to impale Hazel and draw him back into the school building.
In "Dark", Weiss attempts to summon a Nevermore, but it was swiftly defeated.
In "Worthy" Weiss summons the Arma Gigas sword as a shield to protect herself and civilians from projectiles fired from Cinder. She also used the Arma Gigas sword during her land strategy in "Ace Operatives".
In "Rude, Red, and Royal" Weiss manages to use the feather projectiles of her Nevermore avatar and the sword of her Arma Gigas without fully summoning them. She fully summons the Nevermore to fight the Curious Cat in "Of Solitude and Self", but it is eventually destroyed.
Weiss's Avatars:[]
- Arma Gigas
- Boarbatusk
- Queen Lancer
- Nevermore
- Manticore (Film only)
Image Gallery[]
History[]
In "The First Step, Pt.2", Weiss uses her Glyphs as solid platforms to leap off of during her descent. She also uses a Glyph as a solid shield or barrier during her battle against the Boarbatusk in "The Badge and The Burden, Pt.2". She is also seen using her Glyphs to accelerate objects both through the air and over surfaces in "Players and Pieces" and various other occasions. On one occasion, her Glyph turned red while she launched Ruby towards a Nevermore.
Upon training in Atlas, Weiss displayed a level of mastery over her Semblance, as seen where she could activate and use several different Glyphs while in combat.
In "With Friends Like These", she use her Glyphs to create several ice spikes while simultaneously summoning her Arma Gigas.
Despite their durability, Glyphs are not completely indestructible: when her cargo ship began to fall out of the sky, her gravity Glyphs were ripped apart. During her fight against Cinder Fall, the latter was able to burn through them with ease.
Winter Schnee[]
Winter's Semblance, Glyphs
Winter's Glyphs have many of the same effects that her sister's does, most notably including the ability to exert forces on herself and objects, which Winter uses to increase her speed to superhuman levels and boost jumps.
Like Weiss and other members of the Schnee family, she can also summon avatars of her past enemies to fight for her. Unlike Weiss at first, she displays great mastery of this aspect of her Semblance. Her avatars are known to include Beowolves along with a Manticore which she can use as flight transportation. She can also change the size of her avatars as well, often summoning dozens of small Nevermores. Her avatars take on a white-blue coloration and emit a soft glow.
After becoming the Winter Maiden, she was easily able to use her new powers due to her Semblance already functioning like a spell being cast, which increased her understanding of her powers. Because of this, the Nevermores she summoned against Cinder were boosted by her Maiden powers.[8]
Image Gallery[]
Winter's Avatars:[]
Image Gallery[]
Willow Schnee[]
In "Dark", Willow summons a Boarbatusk to protect her son from The Hound, during its hunt in the Schnee Manor.
Willow's Avatars[]
Image Gallery[]
Negative Weiss[]
Unlike Weiss, she had a different Glyph symbol since it took shape because of the Nightmare and was far stronger due to being a Nightmare counterpart, able to do feats impossible in the real world.
In "Do You Have a Plan?", Negative Weiss was capable of summoning limited supplies of Dust to refill her weapons. She was also able to summon Grimm without defeating them.
In "Where You Belong", Negative Weiss teleported herself to Ruby, Blake and Yang's location to banish Blake and Yang far away with her teleport Glyph.
Image Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Weiss' yellow time dilation Glyph she uses on Blake during the Checkmate combo attack in "Painting the Town..." is extremely similar to the one used for the "Haste" spell in Dead Fantasy, a series that Monty Oum worked on before RWBY.[9] Monty even refers to it as "Haste" in the commentary.[10]
- In the official board game, RWBY: Combat Ready, Weiss can use her Semblance as a "Deflection Glyph".[11]
- Several of Weiss' powers in the "White" Trailer have not been shown or explained in the show proper. It is possible they were done before Monty had a clear plan for her semblance in mind.
- When Weiss uses her Glyphs to enhance her movement, she glides above them, mimicking ice skating.
- Presumably, both Whitley and Nicholas Schnee could use Glyphs due to it being hereditary, though this was not demonstrated in the show.
- In RWBY: Ice Queendom, it is unknown if Weiss and any of her family were capable of using teleport Glyphs like Negative Weiss. The only Glyphs that were impossible to use outside of the dream were summoning Dust and creatures of Grimm.
- Time Dilation is defined as a physical phenomenon, where time seems to pass at different rates for an observer experiencing acceleration compared to an observer not accelerating. As such, the one under the "Time Dilation Glyph" would experience things moving slower upon acceleration, in addition to the Glyph resembling a clock, similar to a Time Dilation Clock, a clock which measures the difference in time between two clocks, one of which is moving.
References[]
- ↑ The World of RWBY: The Official Companion
- ↑ RWBY Volume 3 Episode 4: "Lessons Learned"
- ↑ Volume 2 Directors Commentary "Painting the Town..."
- ↑ "Painting the Town..."
- ↑ "Volume 5 Weiss Character Short"
- ↑ RWBY x Justice League #3
- ↑ RWBY: Combat Ready Kickstarter page
- ↑ RWBY Volume 8 Directors' and Writers' Commentary Chapter 14
- ↑ Dead Fantasy RWBY comparison
- ↑ Painting the Town... Commentary
- ↑ RWBY: Combat Ready Kickstarter page
| Semblances | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|