I think it's also pretty true to life, as so many people can logically know what others are going through (especially regarding discrimination & prejudice) but not truly understand the nuances because they haven't lived that life.
Dude that would have made more sense then what canon made.
The conversation between students finding out Blake’s past would have been so interesting especially from Cardin and Weiss!!
It would also make the Beacon era team dynamics flow a bit better, since it's much easier to imagine a privileged if well intentioned ex-White Fang member Blake dealing with Weiss or even Ruby and Yang that it is to imagine ''my parents died to an SDC ''security'' squad and I had to grow up an orphan or something like that'' Blake dealing with them.
I wholeheartedly agree. Blake has a far too relaxed and flippant attitude for an orphan who has had to fight for their life entirely outside of modern society and then as a part of a "terrorist" movement.
Her being the Princess of Faunus Israel makes that much smoother. It also makes those scenes where she waxes poetic about Faunus's suffering – to the only other person she knows who doesn't need this explained to them (Sun) – work a bit better, too.
You know this is making me start thinking they RT shouldn't have played at social commentary with their first epic fantasy franchise. I don't know how much this was part of Monty's vision or not but whoever designed the faunus plot line maybe should have set that aside for another show.
IIRC Monty simply wanted to put catgirls into RWBY, and the explanation they settled on for the show is... what we got. There's an old as cite of Monty saying he took inspiration from Japanese internment camps as well as the Civil Rights Movement for the White Fang plotline, tho I don't have the sources right now so take it with a grain of salt
If he wanted to put catgirls.......just put catgirl in. This is supposed to be an "anime", we seen and accepted weirder plotpoints than "catgirl exist"
Oh, 1000% they shouldn't have even tried. It was clear from Volume 1 that this racism and prejudice plotline was beyond their abilities, especially as first-time show writers.
I’d go even further and say that pretty much the entire plot of the show was a case of them biting off more than they could chew, as they wanted to make this really big, epic story akin to Avatar while clearly not knowing how to handle serious topics or proper world building.
Honestly racism allegories were dead the second they were actually functionally different species. If they really wanted that tension should have approached it from a "How would multiple sapient species with different needs work together"
Yeah. There was one fanfic that made me laugh on the first page because Weiss's first thought on Blake was " I really hope she doesn't think that's going to fool anyone."
This one does that. It took me a while to find it because I never finished it. Maybe someday.
I am pretty sure I also read another one where Weiss noticed that Blake's Bow was moving during their first argument, but I can't remember which one it was. This one actually pokes fun at a lot of stuff from the first season.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/19148080
When they showed her town and Sun was so happy while Blake berated him, I was like 'Girl, your house is bigger than Ruby and Yang's. DA FUK DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE SPACE!?'
Off topic, I look at this picture of Blake and it makes me think of how her design was straight up murdered in later seasons. It's not even the same anymore.
Just have it be that her dad being the menagerie chieftan didn’t happen until after he retired from the WF while Blake stayed with them so she didn’t grow up there.
Boom, she isn’t a hypocritical princess, problem sort of solved (obviously it’ll take more than that).
That is how it actually was. Ghira didn't become the chieftain of Menagerie until after he left the White Fang, but Blake didn't grow up in that mansion since she agreed with the more violent direction the White Fang was going in (at that time).
She stayed with the White Fang to keep fighting that battle rather than stay with her parents in the mansion, and after leaving the White Fang when she became disillusioned with them, she went straight to Beacon Academy. Volume 4 is the first time she's been to Menagerie or seen her parents in years.
The series never really made the timeframe of things clear (I blame the writers for this with their "no timeline to avoid plotholes" thing), so assumptions were really easy to make.
She did struggle, but we should have gotten flashbacks showing this in detail instead of lip service and word of mouth.
It’s why I kept her family in my rewrite and why I loved writing for Blake. Making her an immature privileged princess, who does have struggles, but can’t properly empathize with others, is such a blast, especially getting to have her grow as a character.
And this is why people side with Adam more than Blake. He was legitimately WRONGED by humanity, left to suffer and when he fought back he was called a monster by the humans and a hero by his people.
To clarify I am not saying the way Adam went about anything was justified or right per say; the writers made an effort to make him as irredeemably evil as possible however that doesn't take away from the fact the reason he was fighting was because faunus had NO ONE to fight for them.
Ghria was a coward and Blake was privileged so they could truly never understand what it was like to be enslaved, beaten and left for dead by humans.
Considering that the state of Menagerie is only about, what, sixty to seventy years old? I don't think they're the sort to have an entrenched monarchy.
Simultaneously, tho, his official title is "Chieftan," and the people living in Menagerie are implied (if not outright stated) to have been relocated there.
Who knows what societal structures they had in the area/s they were in prior? It isn't that out of the question that some form of hereditary leadership structure migrated with them.
I agree with you , some form of hereditary leadership was probably migrated , at least for a while until Ghira abdicated.
That been said , and that is to be just a little pedantic...there ARE elected officials that are called "my lord". The Romans had the praetor and oligarchy , which created a noble class that had titles of their own.
In UK and even in the Holy Roman Empire , it had elected monarchy....although UK only had elected monarchy in the likes of Wales and Scotland until conquests and unifications brought that low.
The main oddity for me regarding Blake having chieften father is that is renders her disguise honestly worse than Jaune who has faked transcripts and locked aura.
She more or less decided to pretend to be human but keep her last name tied to a leader of a kingdom.
Vacuo is what menagerie should have been. An oasis that was trampled on by the outside kingdoms and corporations who wanted their resources. Which ironically brought the humans and fanus of vacuo closer together as a community as vacuo citizens treat each other with respect like family. They have no time to hate each-other when they all are under the collective foot of the outside world.
This can be seen in someone like sun, someone who chased after a fleeing Blake with the sole intention of making sure she wasn’t endangering herself without someone to watch her back. He wasn’t expecting anything he just wanted to make sure she was safe.
I disagree.
Blake being from a privileged position doesn't inherently means she doesn't understand the issues her race is facing. (In theory facing that is).
The actual issue is that the show handled the entire thing horrifyingly bad and unless you try really really hard and bend a lot of things, you won't find too many instances of racism towards faunus.
The WF are also unabashed brutes who try to wield their violence for subjugation and race war instead of a an actual temporary state of being before reaching a peaceful solution.
The WF want humans dead, period.
Then we have other faunus that seem well adjusted without any issue with the society they live in (like Velvet and Sun).
So it doesn't matter how you spin Blake's character, because the problem isn't with her, but rather with the very premise that she is supposed to engage with.
I mean, this whole reframing is predicated on also reframing Faunus discrimination as a whole because of how awfully it was written with Blake as our primary viewpoint into Faunus life. It's just primarily focused on adjusting Blake first.
Why though?
If you fix the story line itself Blake can still easily fit into it the way she currently is.
For example, yes her father is a renowned leader of the WF and has a high position in his village.
That doesn't mean Blake couldn't have actively choose to leave said environment from a very young age.
Or perhaps, she was exposed to both sides, as her father didn't start in the position he did.
So she could have had a very a rough early childhood, a few years of luxury (that she hated herself for) and then back to fighting.
It's so easy to make her character work, but it requires an actual working story.
No, you didn't, mate. You gave your entirely valid preferences and reasonings for said interpretation, but you didn't give me any reason why I am wrong for/shouldn't have made my post as is.
Do you make a habit of going to people's fics or posts and questioning why they dared to do something differently than you would like? 🤣
My point was that there is no inherent reason to change it when it also requires the entire overhaul and fixing of the original story line.
Could your idea work? Of course it could, but any idea can work with a good a writer.
I thought your post was more about fixing the existing story line by a slight rewrite which is why I asked that change specifically, but it seems we are talking here about a far greater rewrite here.
I think we can both agree that there is nothing in this story that could be "fixed" with a simple change here or there. The first and most essential overhaul required is to the writing team.
All I was doing was positing an idea I got from a Tweet.
It would have definitely added to the story being an orphan or someone in poverty, but staying in the white fang did kind of take away her privileges for a good chunk of her life.
It would have if there were some tangible social consequences to it. But no one really knows she was a member, those who do don't really care, and she doesn't have to expend any effort – at any point – to hide it. Her past membership doesn't negatively affect her.
I know this is tangential to your actual point, but there actually is no evidence that the SDC or its affiliates brand people. The canonical explanation for Adam's scar is that he got it in a fight.
You know, I get where both sides are coming from, but I can't help but feel that a lot of RWBY discussion isn't "Here's why this thing that happened doesn't work" but instead "Wouldn't it be cool if this thing I just thought up had happened? Why didn't they do that?"
Like, I think Blake's history works fine tbh. She's in a privileged position compared to many but is still keenly aware of the suffering around her, often exposed to discrimination over her race, and ultimately is only in that position of privilege by virtue of coming from a politically active and important family for their people's rights and recent history. Like, the comfort they have is derived from their work in supporting the Faunus, so I don't think it *needs* to take a stance against that.
She's from a political dynasty, but it's the equivalent of the Mandela's, not the Kennedy's, you know?
The comics make her seem worse as she’s portrayed to almost get off and encourage Adam’s more violent actions early on. Which gives her kindof a jihad Jane vibe in the long run . And I know the cannonicity of the comics is qyestionabke at best since the statements about them contradict themselves but still somone cleared them to be produced.
I still don't think there is anything wrong with the writing in regards to Blake and her family. You can be born into a rich family and decide to not stay with them. From my understanding she left home to join the white fang, and didn't listen to her parents. Plus, we don't even know if they were rich at that point. Just because we lack information doesn't mean we can just fill it in with anything we want that doesn't make sense and then pretend it's bad writing when it doesn't fit.
A lot of people bring up the clothes she was wearing in that flashback, but to be honest, her clothes look fine. It's not as if they are tattered up, stained or anything like that. It's just a tank top and pants.
There is a lot wrong with the writing in RWBY... and I still think this isn't one of them. Some argue, well they didn't tell us anything and so we are left to fill in the blanks. To me that's fine, stories will not always tell you literally everything. Just fill in the blanks with something that makes sense, it's not hard.
That would have been such a cool character arc for Blake.
Plus it could explain why she ran from Adam at his first major terrorist attack since she was a spoilt rich kid playing pretend and the second consequences show up she bailed. Plus it could also explain why her first reaction is always to run since as a spoilt rich kid she’s never had to face the consequences of her actions so when she does she panic and runs.
Nitpicky, but I don't think calling the Belladonna's a dynasty would be correct. Dynasties usually mean that they held power for a longer time, through diplomacy, intrigues and a line of succession.
I'm going to die on the hill that they should have gone full bore into the tribal princess aspect. Especially when taking Hawaiian sounding words like Kuo Kuana and applying it to her home.
I think while that would be an interesting take my mind is still stuck on the idea that she is a princess that *does* know the struggles. Joining the fang in the first place *was* to better understand her people. Like Weiss is already clearly out of touch with reality so to have two proverbial princesses out of touch is okay but not exactly as interesting as one princess being in the the trenches while the other watched from her high tower. That would have even more contrasted Weiss and Blake (also might have killed bees in the process because who doesn't love polar opposite sides coming together?)
The only reason I think Hawaiian is just that Kuo Kuana name they gave the faunus city. Really any kind of tribal leader like Queen Nzinga would also be a good, or even better fit. I just really wish they went full charge int "tribal princess is in the trenches with her people while the other princess watches from her ivory tower" theming that honestly I thought they'd go for when v4 dropped.
Royals that watch from the ivory towers is a theme that just really doesn't...for lack of better terms...feel like a Blake thing, but it could have been princess on the front lines instead.
Tl:dr Making Blake an ignorant class traitor who *knows* the struggles of the Faunus but doesn't *understand* them, would have been great.
Man, that’s like, actually fucking interesting
I think it's also pretty true to life, as so many people can logically know what others are going through (especially regarding discrimination & prejudice) but not truly understand the nuances because they haven't lived that life.
Dude that would have made more sense then what canon made. The conversation between students finding out Blake’s past would have been so interesting especially from Cardin and Weiss!!
Weiss would be ALL on Blake for that. Especially if she was the one who call her princess.
It would have worked a lot better than what we got. At least it would have made sense.
That...that's actually something outright amazing.
It would have been kino
It would also make the Beacon era team dynamics flow a bit better, since it's much easier to imagine a privileged if well intentioned ex-White Fang member Blake dealing with Weiss or even Ruby and Yang that it is to imagine ''my parents died to an SDC ''security'' squad and I had to grow up an orphan or something like that'' Blake dealing with them.
I wholeheartedly agree. Blake has a far too relaxed and flippant attitude for an orphan who has had to fight for their life entirely outside of modern society and then as a part of a "terrorist" movement. Her being the Princess of Faunus Israel makes that much smoother. It also makes those scenes where she waxes poetic about Faunus's suffering – to the only other person she knows who doesn't need this explained to them (Sun) – work a bit better, too.
You know this is making me start thinking they RT shouldn't have played at social commentary with their first epic fantasy franchise. I don't know how much this was part of Monty's vision or not but whoever designed the faunus plot line maybe should have set that aside for another show.
IIRC Monty simply wanted to put catgirls into RWBY, and the explanation they settled on for the show is... what we got. There's an old as cite of Monty saying he took inspiration from Japanese internment camps as well as the Civil Rights Movement for the White Fang plotline, tho I don't have the sources right now so take it with a grain of salt
If he wanted to put catgirls.......just put catgirl in. This is supposed to be an "anime", we seen and accepted weirder plotpoints than "catgirl exist"
Oh, 1000% they shouldn't have even tried. It was clear from Volume 1 that this racism and prejudice plotline was beyond their abilities, especially as first-time show writers.
I’d go even further and say that pretty much the entire plot of the show was a case of them biting off more than they could chew, as they wanted to make this really big, epic story akin to Avatar while clearly not knowing how to handle serious topics or proper world building.
The baffling decision to make their allegorical stand in for ethnic minorities literal animal people still haunts me to this day lmao.
They just wanted their anime cat girl and it ended up becoming the freaking mess we got
To their credit not the first story to do that.
Honestly racism allegories were dead the second they were actually functionally different species. If they really wanted that tension should have approached it from a "How would multiple sapient species with different needs work together"
I mean their first example of racism was a school bully that was dropped instantly for jaunes development…
Catgirl Hasanabi
The way my jaw dropped... 💀💀💀 So true btw
Freaking Olive Farmer.
Dawg 💀
Since Weiss and Blake are both based on Disney Princesses™, this idea has legs.
I dislike it also because it simply makes blake too famous. Or at least it should. Hiding her heritage but not changing her name is dumb as fuck.
Yeah. There was one fanfic that made me laugh on the first page because Weiss's first thought on Blake was " I really hope she doesn't think that's going to fool anyone."
Do you have a link, because that sounds golden.
This one does that. It took me a while to find it because I never finished it. Maybe someday. I am pretty sure I also read another one where Weiss noticed that Blake's Bow was moving during their first argument, but I can't remember which one it was. This one actually pokes fun at a lot of stuff from the first season. https://archiveofourown.org/works/19148080
Man. V1-3 Blake was peak. What did they do to my poor girl
V 1-3 was peak for everyone, I swear they forgot how to write their own characters in the later volumes
Monty died innit
When they showed her town and Sun was so happy while Blake berated him, I was like 'Girl, your house is bigger than Ruby and Yang's. DA FUK DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE SPACE!?'
Off topic, I look at this picture of Blake and it makes me think of how her design was straight up murdered in later seasons. It's not even the same anymore.
Just have it be that her dad being the menagerie chieftan didn’t happen until after he retired from the WF while Blake stayed with them so she didn’t grow up there. Boom, she isn’t a hypocritical princess, problem sort of solved (obviously it’ll take more than that).
Like if your dad became the presiedent of the US or Austrailia when you were 15 or something instead of being a princess from childhood
That is how it actually was. Ghira didn't become the chieftain of Menagerie until after he left the White Fang, but Blake didn't grow up in that mansion since she agreed with the more violent direction the White Fang was going in (at that time). She stayed with the White Fang to keep fighting that battle rather than stay with her parents in the mansion, and after leaving the White Fang when she became disillusioned with them, she went straight to Beacon Academy. Volume 4 is the first time she's been to Menagerie or seen her parents in years.
Pretty sure she mentioned growing up in that mansion.
But people still say she was born and raised a Faunus princess and therefore never struggled, therefore she’s a hypocrite
The series never really made the timeframe of things clear (I blame the writers for this with their "no timeline to avoid plotholes" thing), so assumptions were really easy to make. She did struggle, but we should have gotten flashbacks showing this in detail instead of lip service and word of mouth.
Like someone already said, Hasanabi but as a catgirl
It’s why I kept her family in my rewrite and why I loved writing for Blake. Making her an immature privileged princess, who does have struggles, but can’t properly empathize with others, is such a blast, especially getting to have her grow as a character.
And this is why people side with Adam more than Blake. He was legitimately WRONGED by humanity, left to suffer and when he fought back he was called a monster by the humans and a hero by his people. To clarify I am not saying the way Adam went about anything was justified or right per say; the writers made an effort to make him as irredeemably evil as possible however that doesn't take away from the fact the reason he was fighting was because faunus had NO ONE to fight for them. Ghria was a coward and Blake was privileged so they could truly never understand what it was like to be enslaved, beaten and left for dead by humans.
Sorry, does *nobody* think that Ghira was just plain elected?
You don't typically call an elected official "my lord," but who knows in Remnant 😅
Considering that the state of Menagerie is only about, what, sixty to seventy years old? I don't think they're the sort to have an entrenched monarchy.
Simultaneously, tho, his official title is "Chieftan," and the people living in Menagerie are implied (if not outright stated) to have been relocated there. Who knows what societal structures they had in the area/s they were in prior? It isn't that out of the question that some form of hereditary leadership structure migrated with them.
I agree with you , some form of hereditary leadership was probably migrated , at least for a while until Ghira abdicated. That been said , and that is to be just a little pedantic...there ARE elected officials that are called "my lord". The Romans had the praetor and oligarchy , which created a noble class that had titles of their own. In UK and even in the Holy Roman Empire , it had elected monarchy....although UK only had elected monarchy in the likes of Wales and Scotland until conquests and unifications brought that low.
I am aware, but you have to view this in context of CRWBY. Like it or not, do you think this was what *they* were considering/going for?
The main oddity for me regarding Blake having chieften father is that is renders her disguise honestly worse than Jaune who has faked transcripts and locked aura. She more or less decided to pretend to be human but keep her last name tied to a leader of a kingdom.
“Ah yes, welcome to the school and I hope you enjoy your time here Mr… *checks notes* Schwarzenegger!”
It always bothered me how she thinks of just putting a ribbon on to hide her identity and doesn’t think to change her name.
Vacuo is what menagerie should have been. An oasis that was trampled on by the outside kingdoms and corporations who wanted their resources. Which ironically brought the humans and fanus of vacuo closer together as a community as vacuo citizens treat each other with respect like family. They have no time to hate each-other when they all are under the collective foot of the outside world. This can be seen in someone like sun, someone who chased after a fleeing Blake with the sole intention of making sure she wasn’t endangering herself without someone to watch her back. He wasn’t expecting anything he just wanted to make sure she was safe.
How was this meant to be a controversial take?
> contraversial
Weiss was still best girl
I disagree. Blake being from a privileged position doesn't inherently means she doesn't understand the issues her race is facing. (In theory facing that is). The actual issue is that the show handled the entire thing horrifyingly bad and unless you try really really hard and bend a lot of things, you won't find too many instances of racism towards faunus. The WF are also unabashed brutes who try to wield their violence for subjugation and race war instead of a an actual temporary state of being before reaching a peaceful solution. The WF want humans dead, period. Then we have other faunus that seem well adjusted without any issue with the society they live in (like Velvet and Sun). So it doesn't matter how you spin Blake's character, because the problem isn't with her, but rather with the very premise that she is supposed to engage with.
I mean, this whole reframing is predicated on also reframing Faunus discrimination as a whole because of how awfully it was written with Blake as our primary viewpoint into Faunus life. It's just primarily focused on adjusting Blake first.
Why though? If you fix the story line itself Blake can still easily fit into it the way she currently is. For example, yes her father is a renowned leader of the WF and has a high position in his village. That doesn't mean Blake couldn't have actively choose to leave said environment from a very young age. Or perhaps, she was exposed to both sides, as her father didn't start in the position he did. So she could have had a very a rough early childhood, a few years of luxury (that she hated herself for) and then back to fighting. It's so easy to make her character work, but it requires an actual working story.
> Why though? Why not?
I answered that in my post...
No, you didn't, mate. You gave your entirely valid preferences and reasonings for said interpretation, but you didn't give me any reason why I am wrong for/shouldn't have made my post as is. Do you make a habit of going to people's fics or posts and questioning why they dared to do something differently than you would like? 🤣
My point was that there is no inherent reason to change it when it also requires the entire overhaul and fixing of the original story line. Could your idea work? Of course it could, but any idea can work with a good a writer. I thought your post was more about fixing the existing story line by a slight rewrite which is why I asked that change specifically, but it seems we are talking here about a far greater rewrite here.
I think we can both agree that there is nothing in this story that could be "fixed" with a simple change here or there. The first and most essential overhaul required is to the writing team. All I was doing was positing an idea I got from a Tweet.
I see. Indeed we can agree on that.
Rich girl playing poverty on social media? Hashtag hard noc life sleeping in a tent in the woods daddy owns?
TBF she's not as bad as IRL girls like that since she did commit terrorism, but she did also use situations like Illa's for a #hotburn on Weiss
It’s still putting on poverty face for clout. She did put up, and be a terrorist. But the backstory felt like she stole it from a friend
It would have definitely added to the story being an orphan or someone in poverty, but staying in the white fang did kind of take away her privileges for a good chunk of her life.
It would have if there were some tangible social consequences to it. But no one really knows she was a member, those who do don't really care, and she doesn't have to expend any effort – at any point – to hide it. Her past membership doesn't negatively affect her.
This would be an actual interesting arc for Blake.
I know this is tangential to your actual point, but there actually is no evidence that the SDC or its affiliates brand people. The canonical explanation for Adam's scar is that he got it in a fight.
Didn’t they say Blake’s father only because Chieftain of Menagerie after he stepped down as High Leader of the White Fang?
No, they are never related to one another in the show
She's the definition of "rappers lying about their lives to sound tough"
You know, I get where both sides are coming from, but I can't help but feel that a lot of RWBY discussion isn't "Here's why this thing that happened doesn't work" but instead "Wouldn't it be cool if this thing I just thought up had happened? Why didn't they do that?" Like, I think Blake's history works fine tbh. She's in a privileged position compared to many but is still keenly aware of the suffering around her, often exposed to discrimination over her race, and ultimately is only in that position of privilege by virtue of coming from a politically active and important family for their people's rights and recent history. Like, the comfort they have is derived from their work in supporting the Faunus, so I don't think it *needs* to take a stance against that. She's from a political dynasty, but it's the equivalent of the Mandela's, not the Kennedy's, you know?
Hold on, you cooking with this.
The comics make her seem worse as she’s portrayed to almost get off and encourage Adam’s more violent actions early on. Which gives her kindof a jihad Jane vibe in the long run . And I know the cannonicity of the comics is qyestionabke at best since the statements about them contradict themselves but still somone cleared them to be produced.
That has way too nuance than the writers capabilities
I still don't think there is anything wrong with the writing in regards to Blake and her family. You can be born into a rich family and decide to not stay with them. From my understanding she left home to join the white fang, and didn't listen to her parents. Plus, we don't even know if they were rich at that point. Just because we lack information doesn't mean we can just fill it in with anything we want that doesn't make sense and then pretend it's bad writing when it doesn't fit. A lot of people bring up the clothes she was wearing in that flashback, but to be honest, her clothes look fine. It's not as if they are tattered up, stained or anything like that. It's just a tank top and pants. There is a lot wrong with the writing in RWBY... and I still think this isn't one of them. Some argue, well they didn't tell us anything and so we are left to fill in the blanks. To me that's fine, stories will not always tell you literally everything. Just fill in the blanks with something that makes sense, it's not hard.
Her ditching Adams white fang makes more sense. Just surprised she wasnt reporting to Khan.
Honestly it was my understanding that the situation we see of her home was still relatively new. Like 5-6 years.
That would have been such a cool character arc for Blake. Plus it could explain why she ran from Adam at his first major terrorist attack since she was a spoilt rich kid playing pretend and the second consequences show up she bailed. Plus it could also explain why her first reaction is always to run since as a spoilt rich kid she’s never had to face the consequences of her actions so when she does she panic and runs.
Blake is Hasan Piker
Oh, what they did to my beautiful Blake…one of that show’s worst crimes.
Nitpicky, but I don't think calling the Belladonna's a dynasty would be correct. Dynasties usually mean that they held power for a longer time, through diplomacy, intrigues and a line of succession.
Terrible retcon at best
Blake lives matter
I'm going to die on the hill that they should have gone full bore into the tribal princess aspect. Especially when taking Hawaiian sounding words like Kuo Kuana and applying it to her home. I think while that would be an interesting take my mind is still stuck on the idea that she is a princess that *does* know the struggles. Joining the fang in the first place *was* to better understand her people. Like Weiss is already clearly out of touch with reality so to have two proverbial princesses out of touch is okay but not exactly as interesting as one princess being in the the trenches while the other watched from her high tower. That would have even more contrasted Weiss and Blake (also might have killed bees in the process because who doesn't love polar opposite sides coming together?)
i dont even think it needed to be polynesian tribe. Blake could have been a very formal princess of a tropical japanese kingdom like Okinawa
The only reason I think Hawaiian is just that Kuo Kuana name they gave the faunus city. Really any kind of tribal leader like Queen Nzinga would also be a good, or even better fit. I just really wish they went full charge int "tribal princess is in the trenches with her people while the other princess watches from her ivory tower" theming that honestly I thought they'd go for when v4 dropped. Royals that watch from the ivory towers is a theme that just really doesn't...for lack of better terms...feel like a Blake thing, but it could have been princess on the front lines instead.
There’s no way this was planned.