She Was Trapped In The Tower Because Of Her Overly Protective Father - Tumblr Posts

Too add on to the "red eyes symbolize protecting those close to you" part, the two other characters with red eyes are Emerald, who's primary motivation was loyalty to Cinder and tried to protect her on multiple occasions, and Qrow who seems to spend like 50% of his fights trying to keep everyone else alive.

whenever yang's eyes turn red, whenever she uses her semblance due to an emotional outburst, it's always been out of anger or frustration. always to attack someone.

not in worthy, though. she's not angry, or frustrated, nor is she trying to attack neo. it's fear and worry for ruby's life, her goal is to push ruby out of the way of harm, and her semblance activates and her eyes turn red along with it.

and i feel like that's noteworthy, because it's not like yang's semblance gives her more defense, it's purely offensive semblance—if anything, using it just spent more of her aura. so why did it activate in that moment, so unlike any usage of it has been before?

all i can think of is symbolic meaning. eyes are important, and with yang and ruby especially they tie them to their mothers. silver eyes are fueled by desire to protect life, and they do that by targeting grimm. outside of silver eyes, red eyes are only other eye color that has been mentioned in the show—first in reference to grimm, which nicely makes them "opposite" of silver eyes, and second time in reference to raven.

yet yang's eyes turned red by using her semblance in a moment where her sole focus was to protect someone; not by attacking the person threatening them, but by pushing them out of the way. with all this in mind, it's certainly a change from the past, but i can't find it unexpected; raven's semblance seemingly allows her to know when someone she's bonded to is in danger / about to die, and gives her a quick way to protect them.

and i find it neat, that we have two different eye colors, silver and red, one so very anti-grimm and the other grimm-like, yet both symbolize protection in their own way.