First Night W Delia

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As it happens, I am once again on a ‘Raven could totally turn out to be Ruby’s Dad’ theory bent. For the uninitiated, this is the theory that through whatever super-science/magic-chicanery, Raven somehow managed to knock Summer up and Ruby is their magic lesbian lovechild. See here and here for more details. 

So I thought I’d subject you all to more ways that this theory can work into the narrative of RWBY in weirdly specific and fitting ways.

First off, let’s talk about the so far one and only time Ruby and Raven (damn it even their NAMES are phonetically similar!) have exchanged words, AKA; Ruby’s first stint at talking down a bad guy.

It didn’t go too well.

But let’s actually look at Raven’s reaction to this whole speech. Namely, this line:

“You sound just like your mother.”

Not only is this a really good line that effectively confirms that Summer and Raven were quite close once, but the way Raven phrases this line is quite telling.

Raven’s tone is very restrained and forced here. I think it’s pretty clear that Ruby’s speech brought out some emotions that Raven is now clamping down HARD on. We already know from Raven’s scenes with Yang (namely their confrontation in the Haven Vault) that despite caring deeply for her daughter, Raven views those feelings as a weakness and clamps down hard on those feelings as much as she can. It’s not until the scene in the Vault where Yang basically tears those feelings out of Raven by force.

With all that in mind, I think it’s no stretch to say there may well be something similar going on with Raven’s feelings towards Ruby; that she cares for Ruby in the same way she cares for Yang, ie: As a daughter.

Not to mention the line itself; ‘You sound just like your mother’ is totally the kind of line you’d expect to hear from a ‘I’m secretly your father’ character.

Now while we’re on the subject of the Battle for Haven, let’s talk about Cinder.

In hindsight, Cinder’s whole quasi-rivalry with Raven in Volume 5 feels a bit out of place, doesn’t it? Post-Volume 3, almost all of Cinder’s character arc is defined by her lose to Ruby at the Battle of Beacon. As the end of Volume 7 indicates, deep down Cinder is terrified of Ruby, and that fear is the source of Cinder’s obsession with acquiring the other Maiden powers. Ruby made Cinder feel powerless, and now she is desperate to never feel powerless again. So it feels like a weird detour that in Volume 5, the narrative pits Cinder against Raven, a character with seemingly no direct connection to her arch-enemy.

Unless of course, Raven turned out to be the father of said arch-enemy.

Raven being Ruby’s father really streamlines Cinder’s arc and makes her whole journey flow more smoothly. In the Beacon Arc, Cinder overlooks and underestimates a young girl, and suffers a horrific defeat as a result. In the Anima Arc, Cinder makes the same mistake against that same girl’s father and suffers a horrific defeat once again.

It ensures that no matter what she does, Cinder’s fears and obsession with power keeps leading her back to Ruby in some way.

Finally, there is just the sheer symbolism of Raven’s character and how that can tie into the massive amount of Death symbolism and imagery associated with Ruby and other Silver-Eyed Warriors. Ravens of course have always been one of those animals closely associated with Death in literature, which would fit nicely with Raven herself having a close connection with both Summer and Ruby.

As I’ve stated previously, while I do really like this theory, I honestly have no idea if this is actually where CRWBY could be taking the story. This is still some pretty wild conjecture. Hell, we don’t even have any direct hints/implications in-story that Taiyang isn’t Ruby’s father.

And yet, it seems like every time I come back to this idea, it keeps seeming more and more weirdly plausible.

I like to think that at least once, the Avatar cycle seemed to skip the Water Tribe—like people knew it was the water tribe’s turn, everyone was looking for them, the tests are done on all the kids, but like 60-80 years go by and no avatar until some Earth Kingdom kid shows up. People wonder if the cycle skipped a generation or what, but nothing serious was going on at that time so they shrug and move on.

It’s only many many years later that someone is researching Swampbender oral history and someone tells the story of “Ol Stinky Jess, she was a funny one, could light the swamp on fire an’ all sorts o’ shenanigans! Best catfishgator catcher in the tribe, she was” and thats literally it, she just lived a totally chill life in the swamp and nobody knew what an avatar was at the time so they just rolled with that funny gal’s odd bending ways.

Glow

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