Theory: Cinder's grimm arm/parasite is effecting her mind
One of the arguments people who want Salem redeemed and want Cinder killed off horribly in her place make is that because of Salem's grimm corruption, her actions can't be held against her and she should get a second chance. But what about her abuse victim Cinder, who has had a grimm parasite inside of her since the start of the series? It's only logical to assume that if Salem's fall into the grimm pool effects her mind, Cinder having grimm inside of her effects her mind too. This is just one more reason not to brutally discard her, the girl who unlike Salem, has known nothing but exploitation and abuse. It amplifies her worst traits.
actually. thinking about cinder redemption, and like
"do not concern yourself with past failures, ilia. focus on the future. we have an opportunity for redemption." -> blake acknowledging that asking others to leave their homes in menagerie and protect haven academy is asking to put their lives at risk, and that she's going, and will stand by herself if she has to; and ilia takes that opportunity, and regardless of her past failures (she had just attacked the belladonnas), says she'll stand with blake... if she'd have her.
and blake forgives her. what corsac said came true, but not in a way he intended.
so when salem says "i want you to understand that failure. i want you to understand why cinder must be left to toil in her isolation until she redeems herself.", it's giving the same vibes as what corsac said to ilia; that cinder will redeem herself, but not in a way that salem intended.
throw in ozpin's speech in 'enemy of the trust', the parts of it while cinder is on screen—"fear of failure" and "will you understand why they felt the need to do the things they did?"—and the connection with failure and understanding comes to surface.
all that combined, it gives me the feeling that cinder isn't really going to get redeemed within the show, in a sense. she's going to make the first step, some act that shows she's changed her trajectory in life, but perhaps what follows is her leaving on her own accord to figure herself out, to "toil in isolation" without being pushed or forced into it. a one kind of a happily ever after where the story ends, but you know whatever follows will be positive. happy.
like the opportunity ilia ended up taking, this too will be cinder's own choice.
Cinder clutched her shoulder as she took a few deep breaths while she waited for the pain to dull. It had been seven long months since the grimm had been removed, leaving her without her left arm and eye, and the pain never seemed to go away. It was almost as if a fire was burning in her veins and out her shoulder where her arm should’ve been.
“One,” she said, her voice shaking as her fingers gripped her shoulders until she could feel her nails digging into her skin. “Two. Three. Four. F-five…” Her voice cut out as the burning pain started to intensify, her own fingers shaking as she tried to keep her mind off it. “S-seven… eight… nine… ten…”
The pain slowly started to die down like it always did and Cinder pulled her hand away from her shoulder. Those ten seconds of pain always felt like minutes. And yet she preferred it over the gnawing pain that the grimm arm had given her. The way it dug into her, feasting on her despair and anger as if it was digging through her soul for its next meal.
Cinder nearly flinched as she heard a knock on her apartment door. She grabbed her prosthetic arm and started to put it on. “Come in.”
“Are you ready?” Yang asked as she walked in. “We’ve got a long day ahead of ourselves.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m ready,” Cinder said as she finished putting her prosthetic in place, wincing as she felt everything connect. Her mechanical fingers shook as she closed and opened them to make sure everything was still working correctly. The arm itself wasnt the best, one of the cheaper options that was available in Vacuo but it at least allowed her to do her job. “You know you dont have to come get me every time, right? Honestly, it’d probably make your day easier.”
Yang rolled her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. “Dont get me wrong, I’m not a fan of this either. However, Oscar said you wanted to change. So while I wont forgive you, I’ll at least make sure you keep up with your end.”
Cinder let out a heavy sigh and got up once she was sure her arm was working correctly. “What are we doing today?”
“Helping rebuild a few homes near the outskirts of the city. Another sinkhole opened up.”
“Lead the way,” Cinder said quietly as she followed Yang out of her apartment.
As the two walked through Vacuo, Cinder couldnt help but wonder what Yang got out of helping her like this. Ruby was easy to understand, helping people was practically in her blood. And even easier to understand was her reluctance to even give her a shot at trying to change. Then there was Weiss, a few heated words that made it clear that she didnt trust her, but would stay out of it. Blake and Nora were the only two who seemed to give her a chance at change, not forgiving her but at least arguing on her behalf. Even Jaune and Ren seemed to be indifferent to everything, though they agreed that giving Cinder a chance wasnt the worst thing in the world.
But Yang wasnt as easy to read. Sure, helping others like Ruby did was in her veins as well, but it was almost as if she’d pick and choose who she’d help instead of trying to help everyone like Ruby would. She volunteered to be the handler, but seemed to almost not care about whether or not anything was actually done.
“You seem quieter today,” Yang said as she slowed down. “Finally out of complaints?”
Cinder shook her head. “What do you get out of this?”
“Get out of what?”
“Helping me.”
“Nothing I suppose.”
“Then why do it?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because no one does anything without getting something from it.” Cinder looked at her arm and took a deep breath as she felt her shoulder start to burn again. “Salem used me to get what she wanted as long as I followed her, Emerald and Mercury were people I could control for a while… hell, even Rhodes was getting something out of me when he trained me. So what exactly is that you get? Money? Power?”
Yang shrugged as she came to a stop. “Its… the right thing to do?”
“I dont follow.”
“I was raised to believe that everyone can choose to be good or evil, that no one is born that way. Some people have the choice to choose, for others the choice is taken from them. Besides, Blake thinks you deserve a chance to prove yourself and I trust her. Other than that, it doest matter to me what you do. Stick around and help or run off, its your choice.”
Cinder went quiet as she watched Yang walk off, still not sure how much she believed. And yet, it wasnt like she knew Yang enough to really say anything against it. Over the last six months, she never once tried to force her to do anything, only keeping an eye on her.
“Are you coming or did you decide to bail this time?” Yang asked from ahead.
“I’m coming!” Cinder called as she started to walk again. She still didnt understand why she was being given this choice, but if it was going to be hers, then she was going to do what she could to try to make things right. Or at least to be the huntress she had wanted to be.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: RWBY
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Cinder Fall/Winter Schnee, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Characters: Winter Schnee (RWBY), Weiss Schnee, Ruby Rose (RWBY), Cinder Fall
Additional Tags: Cinder Fall Redemption, Vacuo (RWBY), Volume 10 (RWBY), For the love of the gods just keep being snarky
Summary:
The battle for Vacuo took a lot out of a lot of people, and the ending of it only produced more concerns than it did assurances. They had won, though, and that meant the people needed to worry about living another day. This left the Maidens and Huntsmen responsible for the victory in a rather tenuous and stressful position.
I think there needs to be a distinction between “Cinder doesn’t deserve redemption” and “Redemption would be bad for Cinder’s character”. Saying a character doesn’t deserve redemption tells me there’s some arbitrary moral line the character has crossed and now they get barred from redemption. This doesn’t really work, for me at least, because now you can make a moral argument for why other characters don’t deserve redemption. But isn’t that the point of redemption? The fact they don’t deserve it? Anyway I really don’t think that’s the best way to put it.
Now, saying redemption would hurt Cinder’s character or wouldn’t fit her character arc is a much better way to put it and is a fair opinion to have. We can talk about that and eventually come to a place of agreement. Some like pure evil Cinder and think that’s when she’s at her best, or maybe they don’t think the story should go in a direction where she’s redeemed. That’s fine and I can understand why some may feel that way.
It just really bothers me when people try to shut down any talk of Cinder redemption because “she doesn’t deserve it”. Since when do characters “deserve” redemption?
I highly doubt Cinder is going to be saved/redeemed. The narrative may be set up this way because, traditionally, that is how these kind of stories operate but CRWBY… Cinder isn’t the type of character I feel either Miles or Kerry thinks can be “saved.” I’ve seen this type of character before in their writing watching Red vs Blue. They go out of their way to make a character despicable, and they stick to the characterization to the very end.
Okay, so let me address why I think the narrative is setting up Cinder’s redemption. However, as is uncommon for me if you’re familiar with my blog (and which also differs from most Cinder-redemption theories) is that I think her having a redemptive death is likely as things currently stand. That said, I’m happy to be proved wrong.
I’ve never seen Red vs. Blue, and while we can certainly pick up similar themes and the like in stories with shared authors, I don’t think it’s the best idea to use that as a blueprint for another story.
1) Cinder’s Framing and Arc
Cinder is essentially framed as the protagonist of her own subplot in volumes 4-8. That has to have significant meaning; she is in a sense a sort of “villain protagonist.” The audience both wants her stopped and wants to root for her, especially when she’s stumbling around after her defeat in Mistral. That’s five volumes of this; that is an awful long time to build audience investment in the character. If you want your audience to sympathize with a character and even root for them to do better, it is cruel to then be like “nvm she was just a bad egg siiiiike!” RWBY’s writing is not flawless, but it certainly is not cruel.
Secondly, there is a difference between the framing of Cinder and several other characters. If we want to consider a character who will get worse and worse and will not change, consider Tyrian, who has absolutely nothing sympathetic about him. Or Adam, who was not very well done. But like Cinder, Adam was a victim who became a villain; the difference was that he was never framed as the protagonist of a separate arc like Cinder has been.
But most important in terms of a framing comparison to Cinder is Salem. At first, it looks like Cinder is the big bad, but after season 3, we realize it is Salem. Cinder is working for her, not as a lackey, but also as a victim. Cinder is deferential to Salem and is not nearly as in control as she appears. Salem cursing Cinder with a Grimm arm--a clear parallel to what Salem did to Summer Rose and wants to do to Ruby--is textbook abuse, and also parallels Cinder with characters we love.
2) Cinder’s Backstory and Tone
Volume 8 finally revealed Cinder’s backstory in one of RWBY’s most brilliant spins on a fairy tale reference, and one of its best episodes ever in “Midnight.” It is cruel and heartbreaking and yes, tragic.
I’ve talked before about how RWBY does, in fact, include tragedy. It has since its beginning and it almost certainly will up to its ending. What RWBY does not do, however, is pessimistic nihilism. Fairy tales and pessimistic grimdark nihilism could not be more opposed. There is always hope.
Showing that Cinder, who was abused her entire life, just ends up "put down” as the worthless person everyone in her childhood thought she was, ends up dead because nobody helped her, ends up dead because she fell out of one abusive relationship into another... that is so not hopeful. That is tonally pessimistic, nihilistic, dark as hell.
Cinder’s breakdown during her “arc” as a villain protagonist shows how lowly she really feels about herself. It does not seem like a fitting narrative choice to affirm that.
3) Themes!
Cinder believes her goal is to become a servant of Salem and a villain. She believes no one will ever show her empathy. People have dehumanized her, so she dehumanizes. Generally, you should prove your villains and their worldviews wrong.
Not only that, but a major theme of RWBY’s is breaking the cycle of abuse. Now, let’s look at this two ways: Cinder as a victim of the cycle of abuse, and a perpetrator. She’s a victim of the madam’s, and of Salem’s. She is drowning in it. But she also abuses Emerald and Mercury by taking vulnerable children and exploiting their trauma to get them to do something to her. The difference is that Emerald has broken away for better and Mercury--well, he’s currently fallen into worser abuse with Tyrian (the subtext of how Tyrian treats Mercury is not subtle and is not good), but Merc also has no respect for the man and is less psychologically trapped than, say, Cinder is with Salem. If Mercury gets a better offer, he’d probably take it. Cinder is both Emerald and Mercury, as @aspoonofsugar has written: she’s psychologically dependent on her abuser (Salem), yet also continuing to spiral by tumbling into worser and worser abusive circumstances.
We know Salem cannot be killed and that thus, the way to defeat Salem is not through violence. Why would it work to have Cinder be put down by either our heroes or her abuser? How will that open Salem’s eyes, considering Salem has constantly put down those loyal to her (like her own children)? How would Cinder not breaking free reinforce the themes? You may cite Ironwood as an example of tragedy wherein a character becomes the worst version of themselves, but there are very different circumstances here: Ironwood’s tragedy is centered on the theme of fear vs. risk, not the cycle of abuse as Cinder’s is. Not only that, but Ironwood starts the series as a hero, and it’s that he is so capable of good that makes his tragedy resonate. Cinder has never been a hero, and her dying as a villain would not have any thematic impact.
So that’s why I think Cinder is set up for some kind of redemption. The reasons I’m skeptical of her survival are as follows:
1) Set-up
There is no “save the cat” moment for Cinder. Mercury and Emerald both have those moments; Cinder does not. Not only this, but Cinder dramatically rejects every opportunity to “save the cat” she’s given. Watts tries to get through to her, Neo teams up with her, and she stabs both in the back and murders (or attempts to murder in Neo’s case) them. That’s not good. She learned the opposite lesson of the one she should learn, and choices can and do matter.
2) Coding/Framing
Cinder is adult-coded, not child-coded like our main cast (and like Emerald and Mercury). She perpetuates abuse on Emerald and Mercury and is older than them, even if she is not that much older. They clearly depend on her, with Emerald clearly looking up to her as an authority figure and Mercury revealing he once did see her as an authority figure when he tells her off.
But wait, you say, you just said she is revealed as a hurting child! Well, yes. As of Volume 8. There is a huuuuge difference between framing villains as victimized kids by season 2 and 3 (Emerald and Mercury) and framing it that way for the first time in season 8. Of course this is also just opinion, but based on the trajectory of the story (and how most adventure/hero journey stories tend to end the second act of three in utter despair, plus alchemy’s emphasis on the number 12) it seems likely to me that we’re at the very least over halfway through the story. That doesn’t give me a optimism re: her chances to overcome her flaws, be a hero, and survive. Of course, I’d love it if it could be done, but I’m skeptical that’s the intent.
3) Themes/Set up
I’ve talked before about how RWBY is alchemical, and a basic tenet of alchemy is that from death comes life. Killing our heroes doesn’t work, because they are kids and the point is that kids are having to save things because adults failed. A kid dying at the end would cast the entire story as a tragedy, and that doesn’t work.
RWBY is also not anti sacrifice. I do not understand where this take (I see it a lot in fandom) comes from, because it has never been anti sacrifice at all. It shows people mourning those who sacrifice their lives, suffering because they’re grieving, but it doesn’t condemn the sacrificers; it upholds what they did as right. There’s nuance there, but the question of what RWBY thinks of heroic sacrifice really should have been answered with Pyrrha’s statue scene in volume 6. Not to mention Penny, Hazel, and Vine in volume 8.
@aspoonofsugar has spoken about this before, but basically, to sum up an alchemy trope: there is often a major death at the end of a specific phase. Black Death, White Death, Red Death. Sometimes yellow, but that’s usually subsumed into another stage (red or white). I think it’s very obvious Pyrrha is the black death, Penny is the white/yellow (the name of Jaune’s sword--Crocea Mors--which kills Penny literally translates to “yellow death”), and that leaves a red one to happen. Who is associated with red, fire, and rubies? Cinder.
Again, this is just speculation, and far-out at that! We will see. But if she does die, I think it would come after Ruby has saved her from her Grimm arm, and that it would be doing something that, while it costs her her life, saves the entire world.
You ever think about how Cinder’s redemption is going to end up being such a masterfully written redemption? The backstory, the early characterization up until now, the slow build of her descent to rock bottom while also planting the seeds for her eventual epiphany and character change? I love a good slow burn 😌🔥
