I know it's been a bit, so it's rwby posting hours since I don't have the energy to write a fanfic lol.
I'll have to set up a few world building changes, so please bare with me.
*I want to make Rwby's premise, that characters are inspired from fairy tales, more important to the actual lore of the show. To this end, I'll make it so that Oz (and Salem) are the only ones aware of all the fairy tales that make up the people of Remnant, since they are immortal. Some people can contain more than one tale. ALSO important, there is no concrete confirmation for most characters, so Oz and Salem have to use context clues to figure out who's who.
*Because of this, Oz and Salem use this knowledge to their benefit. For example, characters from the same tale will be stronger together, which is why Oz tried to build his inner circle out of all The Wizard of Oz characters.
*However, Oz has a fatal flaw in the ways he interacts with people's tales. He tends to read stories with a very surface-level reading, meaning he may miss some nuances in the original tales (this will be important later). Salem, on the other hand, understands the og tales intimately (I hc she was an avid reader due to also being Rapunzel). This is how she is able to turn "good" characters, such as Aladdin, John Watson, Hansel, and Cinderlla. She understands their motivations.
*One FINAL change: The relics will now need a character FROM THEIR TALE in order to be used. For example, the relic of knowledge (Aladdin's lamp) will now need a character from Aladdin to activate.
Now we get to the main premise of the AU.
Salem is the manifestation of the "evils" of the world, let loose from the box.
I think Oscar should also be Pandora.
Qrow is the spirit of hope.
All in all, I think Qrow as the spirit of hope would match his character more than the scarecrow. Adding onto the lore of Oz misreading stories, in this AU Raven is actually the scarecrow (continuing the trend of Oz's inner circle betraying him).
Pandora's box (also called the relic of hope), is given up as a lost cause by Oz. This is because, in all the years he's fought Salem, he's never been able to find the spirit of hope in order to seal Salem and thd other person back inside. He can't find the spirit of hope because despite his long life, he himself has lost hope, and doesn't know what it would take to reunite Remnant.
Oz reads the moral of Psndora's box as: Don't give up hope. Which is true. But It is only until Oz spills the beans to Oscar about everyone containing remnants of old tales, that Oscar is able to help explain the nuances of the myth:
How Hope is punished and trapped along with all the evils of the world, despite having done nothing wrong, because Hope's existence is contradictory. Hope cannot exist without evil.
So Qrow's bad luck semblance is more of a manifestation of one of the morals of his tale: there is no hope without misfortune.
Qrow also matches the story with his theme of family. In Pandora's box, the spirit of Hope stays "in the box" as a metaphor for not giving up hope/abandoning humanity. Much like Qrow stays with his family through their own personal misfortunes.
They beat Salem because Oz (through Oscar) sends Qrow to join Salem as a spy. Salem let's him, despite knowing exactly which story he is, because she doesn't think Oz will ever figure it out, and she wants bragging rights.
I like to think that Qrow helps persuade Salem's crew back to the side of good just by being himself lol. Afterall, he is the spirit of hope, interacting with tales that basically got the "bad ending."
Salem and Qrow end up trapped in the Relic of Hope together, with Oscar acting as Pandora (but NOT opening the box - protecting it). If you're feeling extra evil, no one else learns that Qrow was a double agent (they thought he just cracked) and only remember him as a traitor.
TLDR; Ozpin mistakes Qrow for the scarecrow. Raven is actually the scarecrow, Qrow is the spirit of Hope from the myth of Pandora's box.
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