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kaen-ace-of-diamonds · 1 year

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How Summer Rose Became The Werewolf MILF We All Didn’t Know We Needed

I drank the werewolf wine again so now you’re all going to hear about the Summer Rose Grimm werewolf agenda —

OKAY. So we have presumably all noticed the show’s Highly Suspicious way of never saying that Summer actually died: it’s always “took,” “left,” “lost,” “gone,” etc. We’re just going to accept it as a fact that she’s alive.

(To be clear, I don’t believe Summer is or has ever been in the Ever After, considering the questionable reality of the Blacksmith’s first appearance/the effects of Ruby’s mental state on her surroundings in the second.)

In the past, I’ve flirted with the theories that Summer is A) stuck in suspended animation at the bottom of a Grimm pool, or B) trapped as a prisoner in Evernight while Salem feeds off the residual magic in her body, but in recent times I’ve come to be backing the horrible bastard child of both theories.

C) Summer was Grimmified after failing to defeat Salem and, her spirit entirely broken, is now working as her right-hand werewolf to help her end the world because she believes putting Remnant out of its misery is her only option.

Stay with me, here we go.

First off — Why did Summer go to Evernight in the first place?

As Qrow told us, nobody but Summer knows why she left on her last mission, which was apparently not one that Ozpin assigned her. And as Salem told us, when she met and defeated Summer, Summer told her some variation of, “We don't have to kill you to stop you. And we will stop you.”

Silver eyes don’t just kill Grimm. They can also freeze them in permanent stasis. What if Summer got it into her head that she could try and stop Salem that way? Hell, maybe she could even vaporize the Grimm pits along with her! Oz doesn’t believe that she can be stopped directly, only held off, so I don’t believe that that’s a plan of action he would have tried.

But Qrow was right about Summer: she takes the information that Oz gave her, and takes it further. Salem must be killing Silver-Eyed Warriors for a reason: the most obvious one must be that her powers are the key to defeating her. And even leaving aside the very good chances that the only other Silver-Eyed Warrior she knows is her toddler daughter...

She’s the leader, isn’t she? The hero. She’s supposed to take care of everything, help everyone. Now that the idea occurred to her, how is she supposed to turn her back on a whole world that needs her?

(Ruby, with the deepest of sighs: “unfortunately, same hat, Mom”)

If she succeeds, the world will be safe, forever. Her daughters will never have to go through what she and her team have, make the kind of choices she has to make now.

So without her boss or her teammates’ knowledge, off Summer goes to Battle Tendency this bitch, hoping against hope that she’s finally found the answer.

Raven, sitting judgmentally in a tree watching her go:

What happened at Evernight?

We can all guess where this went.

Summer at the door of Evernight Castle:

Salem, who was enjoying a nice cup of tea and a book before this human came trying to assassinate her: what the fuck is going on down there

Summer tries to fight her and quickly finds out that she’s in over her head: Salem gives her the bad news that, surprise, she can’t be killed, didn’t Ozpin tell you, girl?

He did not, but Summer keeps trying: she doesn’t need to kill her to stop her, after all.

I have an image of her managing to Silver-Eye the Grimm out of Salem, and Salem diving right back into the pool of Destruction to power herself up again, but I’ve got no evidence to back that up, I just think that’s what would horrify poor Summer the most.

In the struggle, Summer gets thrown into the Grimm pool too, but to her own horror and Salem’s surprise, it doesn’t kill her like it would any other human.

Divine cannot kill the divine, only alter it. Because of the God of Light’s power inside her, the Grimm pool doesn’t kill Summer, but transforms her into a Grimm hybrid. Salem hasn’t been shocked in eons, but she certainly is watching this horror unfold in front of her.

Salem realizing she can do something new with this interesting little anomaly:

Summer: [SCREAMS OF THE ETERNALLY DAMNED]

Grimm Symbolism

First of all, in “The End of the Beginning,” the scene cuts straight from Summer’s grave, which we know damn well is empty, to Evernight:

It’s pretty obvious where Summer went, and where she actually is.

Second of all, it was pointed out to me that not only does the Grimm color scheme match Team RWBY’s (red, white, yellow, and black are the only ones visible on all of the Grimm), but Summer’s as well:

So far as I can tell, Summer and the Grimm are the only characters to incorporate all four colors into their designs. In any other show I would ignore that, but in RWBY, color symbolism is everything, so it deserves at least a mention.

Does she still have her powers?

That’s completely up in the air for me, and no possible option is any better than the others for Grimm!Summer.

Option 1: she still has her Silver Eyes, but can’t actually use their power.

Option 2: she still has her Silver Eyes, and is still able to use her powers, but at the cost of badly hurting herself thanks to her new, vulnerable Grimm body.

Option 3: she doesn’t have her Silver Eyes at all anymore, and forget about the powers: a Grimm can’t use anti-Grimm abilities by its very nature.

I’m also still up in the air as to what her eyes might look like now that she’s transformed. Personally, I’m picturing her with silver eyes with black sclera: a full moon in a pure black night.

On the other hand, if her eyes were turned red like a Grimm’s or Salem’s, that’s a blood moon!

Why do you think any of this in the first place? Why couldn’t she just be a Hound?

Because of the Unspoken Plan Guarantee. Ruby’s already caught on that something is going on:

So it’s all but guaranteed that when we finally meet Summer, it’s going to be a whole lot worse than what Ruby’s already assuming.

Right now, Ruby thinks that the worst possible way she can find her mother is as a mindless Hound. So the show is going to have to bump the stakes of her eventual reveal up considerably in order to keep it a good surprise. If the audience is already clued into the fact that she’s been transformed into a Grimm, the twist will be that unlike the Hound, she’s kept her mind and is working for Salem willingly.

(Incidentally, this is also the reason why not just anyone other than Oz can destroy Salem: because Nora brought that exact possibility up in “A Night Off”):

...Okay, but why a fucking werewolf?

I’m glad you asked! Not only do werewolves absolutely fuck but there is a boatload of symbolism backing up the idea.

Wolf Symbolism

Among all the corvids and dragons running around in this family, it’s easy to overlook the general wolfiness surrounding Summer and Ruby both, from several different directions.

Little Red Riding Hood

It’s been obvious from volume 1 that one of Ruby’s allusions is Little Red Riding Hood. So isn’t it suspicious that, in volume 9, we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of her Big Bad Wolf?

Clearly, none of the villains we’ve seen so far fit, not even the Hound, who didn’t have the autonomy and was finished off too quickly to be on the wolf’s level. Especially if she ascends to become the Woodsman of her own story as well, it’s long past time for that story’s villain to show up. Summer tried to become the Woodsman herself, taking her axe and slaying the villain so Red Riding Hood could live in peace, but was consumed by and became the Wolf instead.

(And since we do have one character who fits pretty well into the role of Red’s grandmother, who is also eaten by the Wolf...sorry, Maria, I think if you meet Summer you’re going the way of Obi-Wan.)

Odin’s Wolves

Qrow and Raven allude to Huginn and Muninn, the two ravens that Odin uses to gather knowledge from around the world, just as Ozpin gave the Branwens shapeshifting magic so they could serve as his spies. But there were four students on the team he gave special attention. What might Summer and Tai allude to in relation to Oz?

Well, Odin didn’t just have two ravens, he created two wolves as well: Geri and Freki, both of whose names translate to “greedy,” “voracious,” “gluttonous,” and such. They ran out to consume the corpses left on the battlefield (sometimes guided by Huginn and Muninn) and guide fallen souls to Valhalla, relying on Odin to give them meat rather than hunting for themselves.

Spying is only one part of a successful campaign: once you have the tactical information, you’ve got to make use of it. We’ve heard little if anything of what Summer and Tai were doing for Oz, but it’s pretty reasonable to guess that once Qrow and Raven gathered important intel, it was Summer and Tai who were dispatched to handle the situation.

Even if Summer and Tai weren’t actually given wolf shapeshifting magic, their teamwork with Raven and Qrow could easily still fit the roles of Odin’s birds and wolves.

It tracks with the real-life behavior of ravens and wolves as well:

What Do You Know About Summer Rose, Raven Branwen

Tell Us

She Has The Other Half Of Your Bracers, Raven

In addition, it has also been pointed out that Geri and Freki have more destructive counterparts: Hati and Sköll (”one who hates” and “one who mocks”), who in some versions of Norse mythology chase the moon and sun through the sky so they can eat them during Ragnarok, ending the world. (Some sources have them as the wolf Fenrir’s children, but as far as I can tell it’s not a definite thing.)

And who do we know around here who are directly symbolized by the moon and sun?

Speaking of which...

Ruby’s In On It, Too

To round all this off, according to RTX 2013′s RWBY art panel, Ruby was originally designed to be “kinda wolfy,” with gray hair that flipped up like ears/hackles to look "wild and wolf-like.”

It’s Beowolves that she’s shown fighting in the Red Trailer, and she has Beowolf models overlooking her bed:

And, more recently: what did she dress up as for Halloween (her birthday!) in the official merch?

The question is, what purpose does this imagery serve? Because Ruby’s wolfishness hasn’t been brought up directly in the show, much unlike other characters’ more blatant imagery. If this theory is correct, it’s to connect her to her Big Bad Wolf mom.

Ruby shares a certain other category of imagery with her mother as well...

Moon Symbolism

This is the more obvious symbolism associated with Summer and Ruby, just like Tai and Yang are associated with the sun. Right from the Red Trailer, the two of them have always been associated with the moon, especially the full moon.

The moon is also notably brought up in several song lyrics in ways that could be very relevant as well — “The moon will sadly watch the roses die,” “Rising like the moon,” “Our path was clear / The moon watched safely from above", "Enemies arise and the hate is flowing / Shattering the moon and bloodying the sky,” “When there's no more light / and the moon should crumble” — but I’m not good enough at analyzing songs to go too in depth on that point.

Now, remember the pool of Destruction that Salem jumped into that turned her Grimm in the first place? What was reflected in it again?

[Eggman voice] THE MOOOOOOOOON

I might note here that my character tag for Summer isn’t “dead Moon Mom,” it’s “Dead Moon mom”: we can still swing it so that one of her character allusions is the Dead Moon (or Buried Moon, as it’s called in some versions) of English folklore.

How it goes is basically: the Moon protects travelers through England’s bogs with her light, but when she hears that without it, the people are attacked by evil creatures of the night, she descends to Earth to try and solve the problem, clad in a black hooded cloak. In saving a lost traveler, her light attracts the creatures, who bury her alive in the bog.

The traveler eventually leads the worried people back to the bog to save the Moon, but Summer’s journey to save humanity from the Creatures of Grimm with the light of her Silver Eyes doesn’t go quite as well. She’s still buried in the bog, trapped in the body of a Grimm hybrid.

To sum it all up, combine a wolf with the full moon and what do you get?

WEREWOLF, MOTHERFUCK

So where is Summer now?

In the one place we haven’t gotten a proper look at yet.

“Reinforce our numbers at Beacon. The Relic is there.”

It didn’t seem to me like Salem was talking to a Grimm there. Like with Leo in volume 5, somebody is on the other side of that conversation. Summer just isn’t too inclined to answer verbally: she loathes her master, but has no choice but to stay under her control.

It’s also been pointed out that Team STRQ is the Team RWBY that failed and broke down; specifically, Summer is the Ruby that lost hope and gave up, that was utterly shattered and didn’t go to the therapy dimension about it.

The Hound(s) are an experiment, by Salem’s own description: a weapon not quite as mindless as the average Grimm but not as resentful as Summer. As a wolf, Summer is a step above them, the perfected version that Salem has been trying to recreate ever since accidentally acquiring her.

Summer’s last ditch effort to save the world was so thoroughly crushed, every possible solution she thought to helping the ones she loves most completely lost. With those gone, the only thing she has left to offer her family and the world is the mercy of a quick death. So that’s what she’s going to give them; and to that end, here she is at the end of Salem’s leash, still fighting to end suffering in the only way she believes she can anymore.

She’s not going to be happy at all to find out that her daughters became Huntresses to follow in her footsteps (”but, baby, please don’t do what I did” / “I don’t want you to waste your life in vain” and all that), and Ruby and Yang are going to be even less happy to find out that not only is their mom alive but is now evil and wants to kill them before Salem can do worse to them.

Absolutely nobody is happy at that family reunion except Salem, who’s watching the continued befuckening of her favorite lapdog’s life with wine and popcorn.

How are they going to beat her?

Don’t let that header fool you, I have no actual conclusion to this post. My only solid idea re: how the actual Rose-Xiao Long-Branwen family fight might actually go is that Summer can’t be one-shotted by Ruby’s Silver Eyes like any other Grimm. She can be temporarily hurt by them, but being a Silver-Eyed Warrior herself, they can’t permanently damage, freeze, or kill her.

Cinder, rage quitting: OH COME ON THAT’S NOT FUCKING FAIR

#throwing all my cards on the table before saturday delivers a midnight-caliber demolishing of my headcanons #summer rose #ruby rose #RWBY #kaen rambles #long post #rwby9

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