Veered off topic in a previous anon, but I wanted to put this here: I think Pyrrha’s death represents the uncomfortable nature of the fighting school genre, which is if people fight, people will die. I think it’s fitting that the end of the fighting school arc is one which ends in that natural answer... mostly because RWBY challenges its genre entrapments, and at other times embraces them. (In the latter sense, I think this is most true with fairy tales/happy endings - the point of Ozma’s death is it’s absurd in the technical sense, and also not the end of the story - it’s still possible to redeem and contextualise inside a greater story).
To some degree the show is not totally approving of the fighting schools, maybe some idea of Huntresses/Huntsmen, but given that their legacy is relatively short (despite appearing to be enshrined ancient institutions? with their special little Vaults and their cutesy rule of fours) which is sort of ironic, and given the depiction of schools like Atlas or headmasters like Lionheart who had everything on their shoulders and with Oz gone, authority fell apart, I think this is sufficient evidence they’re at least critical to some degree.
Pyrrha’s death could have been avoided. But she was young and everybody thought she was perfect.
So yes, I do think Cinder’s moral acts are very interesting, and why/how she killed Pyrrha is too, but by the same stroke both their characters represent issues with fighting schools. Particularly so with Cinder, where even if she had gone to the academy she probably would have had a horrible fucking time (see: what became of Winter).
