Why we shouldnât trust Jinn or 100% of what she showed us:
Throughout episode 3, the narrative (aka Jinn) repeatedly and consistently portrays Salem as evil, and the gods as justified for their actions. Before we address the title, letâs breakdown what happened and some of the implications of it.
Salem is trapped by her father in a tower. Not only does this mean her only known human interaction is extremely abusive and traumatizing, but the subsequent attempts to selfishly free her for glory or marriage horribly painted her views on humanity. Despite this, she still holds hope that there are good people, and wishes to see them.
Enter Ozma. For the first time in her life, Salem meets a person who wishes to free her from her prison for good reasons, simply because itâs the right thing to do. Ozma frees Salem, and brings her away from a place that she only knows for pain and suffering.
Because of this, Salem comes to associate Ozma with safety and comfort. She falls in love with him deeply, and is entirely dependant on him for her emotional health and well-being. When he dies, Salem takes it extremely hard because sheâs lost a physical symbol of safety and comfort, as well as a lover.
Next comes the meeting with the gods, first the elder sibling. During their meeting, Salem asks for her lover, her only human companion, be revived. Not an unfair request, considering her past and their relationship. When the god of light denies her request for the legitimate reason of maintaining the balance of life and death, Salem reacts as expected: with anger and denial.
After her meeting with the god of light, Salem instead goes to the god of contortionism, and repeats her request. This time, the god of darkness is so deprived of followers that he fufills her request with no complaints.
God of light shows up shortly afterwards, and explains to his brother how he shouldnât disturb the balance. Contortionist god, bitter that his older brother got all the attention, spitefully brings Ozma back only for light to kill him until light reveals that Salem came to him first. Enraged, Cortortionist kills Ozma for good and curses Salem with immortality for defying them and being âarrogantâ, the first instance of them victim blaming.
Salem predictably loses it a tiny bit from watching her lover killed and ressurected multiple times and then being cursed with immortality on top of previous traumas, and gatherâs Remnantâs armies to fight the gods. This infraction is something the brothers, as gods, would inevitably retaliate with death. However, instead of killing the assembled humans and their monarchs, he instead offs humanity en masse. This is our biggest hint that these gods are⌠not good. In the slightest.
In Salemâs depression, she throws herself into a pit of grimm essence, corrupting her. Ozma is brought back and violates another manâs body, using it as a tool to procreate 4 times in a concerning bit of rape imagery. But, regardless, Ozpin lied to Salem about his body and physical situation, raping her as well and then betraying her trust. Salem now sees that the one being she felt she could trust, that would treat her as a human being, is just as bad as all the others who came to free her from her tower. In her rage, she kills him and their 4 daughters whom she dearly loved, which clearly sent her even further over the edge. Then, years past before unknown events resulted in her pronounced veins and black daimond on her forhead.
Now, this tells us a few things. First off, we donât know everything about what happened. Where did Salemâs head daimond and veins come from?
(Pictures for comparison)
We also know that the gods are unfairly biased against Salem, and that The god of light is worse about it. GoD is just a dick.
Additionally, Jinn was created by the elder brother, from his magic. Sheâs an extension of him and his power, and as such is most probably biased against Salem as well, explaining the rampant victim blaming in Jinnâs recount of events. Ozpin is also painted as a good and sympathetic person until ep 4 kindly reminds us that Ozpinâs pathological lies have fucked people over for centuries (and yet people still act like RWBYOQ are demons for being pissed at him instead of pitying him.) and removes him from his briefly sympathetic spotlight. This means anything Jinn tells us about Ozpin or Salem is as painted with favouratism as Qrow was in previous seasons.
However, there is still one question left, and one big mystery to use it on, a mystery that is only connected to Ozpin, not about him: What hapoened to Summer Rose? A question that would shed light on STRQâs past, on why Raven ran, confirm Qrowdad and maybe give us and the cast fuel to fully condemn Oz and move on to how to kill Salem. Hell, Summerâs death might even tell us how to kill Salem, or at least give us clues to figure it out throughout the rest of the plot. As long as it makes sense and doesnât involve resummoning the gods, Iâm game.