Raven Branwen

I'm happy that there are people out there who enjoyed the depiction we've gotten of Raven so far, good for them. And I have no vested interest in trying to take that away from anyone... I just don't see the appeal personally.
Some people see the contradictions in Raven's behavior as painting the picture of an incredibly nuanced and realistic character, but I'm not sure that's the case. Because contradictions in a fictional person's actions can sometimes just be inconsistent writing or lack of a clear vision for said character.
I'm not saying that Raven's portrayal couldn't perhaps have been intentional and layered. But I unfortunately lean more towards the possibilities that she became a victim of plot facilitation or good ol' fashioned lack of decisiveness.
For example, I can't help but relate her characterization to this line from V5:
Ren: "A common philosophy is that a warrior's Semblance is a part of who they are. Some say your personality and character can define your Semblance while some claim that it is the other way around. Of course, there are still many who don't see a connection at all."
In short, it can either be one way, the opposite way, or absolutely any other way. It's a line that says so much it doesn't really say much of anything. And I feel the same way about Raven.
To me the way in which Raven has shifted back and forth between expressing care for her tribe (V4C4) and not having any concern for them when they're getting beaten up in V5C4 or potentially killed between V5C8 and V5C9... The way in which she espouses a survival-of-the-fittest philosophy but then surrounds herself with tribe members like Shay D. Mann whose weakness and incompetence are played for jokes repeatedly... The way in which Tai characterizes Raven as a person who acts "like the easiest way to tackle an obstacle is through it" but then has apparently spent decades avoiding the people hunting her tribe for the Spring Maiden power and setting up an elaborate bait-and-switch should they be discovered. Which doesn't really match the aforementioned claim.
Again and again, the writing not just of Raven but surrounding Raven changes without seeming to have a real core or direction.
The post-credits sequence she appeared in after Volume 2 has literally never been addressed or utilized again in the show.
The ominous tone and cinematography with which Shion's ruins were shot, insinuating the tribe as a grounded and real threat whose actions have led to genuine consequence in the death of innocent people, does not rhyme or mesh at all with the bland daytime-camping way the Branwen base is shot, designed or populated in Volume 5.
In V5 Yang's explicitly stated motivation to find her mother and discover why she left is apparently something she decided to outgrow or discard offscreen, and instead she only claims to wanna use her Semblance as transportation to Ruby.
So I guess I just don't share the faith with which statements like these are strung together:
Sometimes, nothing making sense should just tell you that things aren't written sensibly.
Raven is still a mystery and we don’t really know how exactly she feels about things, but now she’s an emotional mystery. We know that she has done things in the past (or rather: left her team and her family behind) that we still have no real explanation for and that “she just doesn’t care enough about them” is probably not the answer.
Building mystery in this sense isn't exactly difficult or impressive writing in my opinion, and anyone who has read the works of a certain insane, talented, half-blind lumberjack (praying to god she'll feel better soon btw) knows that the true quality lies in whether the mystery gets tied together in a satisfying way.
For example, there was a period when loads of fans here seemed certain that Hazel was gonna be a great character back when he was primarily shrouded in mystery, but then when Volume 5's climax tried to actually execute a characterization and backstory for him... Many were disappointed that the thing they got neither meshed with nor was as interesting as what the mystery had built up. The same thing could happen to Raven (there's an argument to be made that it already has).
And ultimately I think there are diminishing returns to building one's writings around the concept of mystery, or reveals, around "this character didn't do what you might expect said character to do, isn't that nuanced?"
Because just like how the plot-mysteries of Lost eventually deflated each other, writing a character where too little is consistent or known will deflate the moments when a character is meant to surprise you.
In summary, I don't think Raven has been characterized consistently enough to qualify for nuance yet.

Divine Domains

Done dirty: Maidens
https://66.media.tumblr.com/e68399a582dd561fe7a0c8a3e94432df/tumblr_inline_pi5s1h81871rwrhtp_500.jpg
What they said.
Maiden, like my meme said, were a good idea. One that would have been better had it been planned from the start, but still a good idea.
The idea of beings of magical power in a world where it’s been explicitly stated that stuff like dust and semblances weren’t magic is really interesting.
Good grief, alright. Let’s talk about some plot holes.
For starters, news coverage.
Okay, this is a show that’s made by a web-based company, right? Wouldn’t word of a woman who somehow has a ‘semblance’ of manipulating and generating the elements be pretty newsworthy? The writers are trying to convince the audience that the Ozluminati is competent enough to keep news coverage or even internet coverage of something like that under wraps, but they’re not competent enough to realize that this bitch[Cinder], isn’t a student?
But fine. Whatever. Let’s assume that Ozluminati put 90% of their efforts into quashing media coverage of maidens, and that 10% goes to security and repairs (Actually, this explains Glynda’s job so much right now). Do the writers really think that word of mouth isn’t a thing?- Unless Oz’s spies are positioned in literally every village, town, and kingdom (at which point, why all the security?- Oz could literally just have his spy kidnap the maiden kid, and then raise them to be a living weapon. (Oh hey! Another better idea of how to make Oz look shady that would have been superior to the canon reason in every way (God! It’s like this show is baby’s first fanfiction (Only, it’s the roughest of rough drafts)))).
The idea of Maidens could also have been improved if they followed similar rules that Oz follows. ie: the memories of the very original maiden is with them. It allows the new Maiden to gain the new experiences of the old maiden, gain the knowledge of previous maidens, and have immediate knowledge of their powers.
This idea of reincarnating special powers into other people has been done before, and it could have been done with it’s own twist on it. Instead, the powers are forced upon others. Alternatively, instead of having intimate knowledge, they could have a general idea as to how they work, and could seek out the training to better master them.
A wise playwright once said: "Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them." - William Shakespeare
So the idea of some maidens embodying any of these ways of thinking has potential. Explore these ideas and make them worth something.
There could be a maiden that had the power when they were an infant.
Then you have Cinder, who fought and cheated to achieve the power.
And then you have Pre-Raven Spring, who had the power thrust upon them.
Unfortunately, since Raven offed that one (thanks a lot, Rae), we don’t get to actually see “greatness thrust upon them.”
And then we could have one that basically plays into the idea of not wanting the power, but knowing that the only way to get rid of them is basically to die.
In essence, the exploration of how each character would react to getting the maiden powers would have been interesting. We are only told of Pre-Raven Spring‘s struggle with the pressure of her powers (”Greatness thrust upon them”), but we are never shown the struggles.
Cinder’s struggles before she got her powers ultimately makes her motives for wanting to take the powers (”Achieve greatness”) were never shown, so her story is ultimately uninteresting.
And again, we have yet to see (not be told of) a maiden who had the power since they were little, so their struggles (”Born great”) are irrelevant.
Really, the idea of the maidens were a good idea. But it would have been preferable if they were planned from the start (as opposed to being conceptualized in Mid-Volume 2) or had been better thought out before being implemented into the story, it wouldn’t feel like the mess it is right now.
Maidens were something that should have been planned out from the start or never been in the show because sloppily throwing it into Vol 3 and then revolving the whole story around it was terrible it's one of the things that contributed to the show's story going off the rails so badly.

Holy Books & Codes

Duuuuude I've been asking about the arua transfer machine since it was introduced. Like... How do they have soul sucking tech but not soul sucking weapons? I mean granted they don't work on Grimm, but they could've technically transfer all the maidens into robot bodies so that they stay in one place and they don't have to search for the new ones every time one dies. Just have all the maidens be like penny, send all four of them too capture Salem and shove her into a machine and transfer her to a non immortal body. Or if they use the excuse she has infinite aura, do like oz and split her magic up among everyone and now everyone important is invincible, or heck or use it on the gods when they descend. Any of those ideas could've been at least ATTEMPTED.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

What is the moral in "The Four Maidens"? RWBY has a lot of connection and references to fairy tales, but the one complete original fairy tale that we know of from Remnant feels kind of devoid of a lesson for readers or listeners to learn from. I know it's supposed to be semi-biographical since it's a simplified version of how Ozpin made the first Maidens, but as a story by itself, it doesn't have a clear message like most fairy tales do (Red Riding Hood: Be wary of overly nice people, Ant and the Grasshopper: Don't put off important work, etc).
A wizard sits in his house moping for some reason, then some cute girls decide to do some yard work for him completely unprompted, and so he's appreciative that his place looks better because of what they did for him and gives them superpowers as thanks.
Who is the protagonist of this story? The Maidens were fine with helping the wizard out but didn't face any challenge in doing the work or getting him to come out, so they're not the ones who are learning anything. And the wizard just had to watch cute girls fix up his property and be thankful for it, so he's not it either. Yeah, Oz says it was him "learning how much he actually had", but that was only after four strangers fixed it up for him, and there was no reason he couldn't have done it faster with magic, so what did this change?
I dunno, what do you guys think the moral is supposed to be? It just seems odd that the only real in-universe fairy tale we have doesn't work on its own as a fairy tale.

Physical Description

Special abilities

The original Branwen was a Shaman. What were the wonder twins’ role in the tribe? We hear them talking about the tribe, so we can naturally think of tribal mechanics, tribal nature and composition. The term tribe is very general, however they do tend to have certain commonalities.
The idea of the Shaman. The origin of the word Shaman refers to the medicine man of a particular tribe somewhere in Asia. This word was created by Europeans to describe these types of people, so it’s not totally accurate to the tribe’s native language and became used as a more general term to describe anyone remotely similar to the description.
I believe the reason why the wonder twins were so important to the tribe, why they above all else were put in charge of it and why Raven currently leads it is because they were basically the Shamans of their people. Like I said, Shaman are a very diverse group, with many different ideas, ideologies, backgrounds and cultures, but there are some stories that they have in common. One of them is the idea of shapeshifting. It is believed by many Shaman from areas such as North America , South America and parts of Asia that an individual can shapeshift into an animal. This is done by entering into the spirit world. By passing over into the next world they can commune with these spirits. These spirits are personifications, so not the spirit of a bear or fish or wolf, but the spirit ofbear or fish or wolf. It’s basically an entity that encompasses all of what it means to be that animal; the avatar of a species if you will. After years of working with the spirit, the spirit can choose to grant it’s form to the shaman, meaning that when they return to our world they can shapeshift back and forth at will. This however takes a lifetime of work and is very rare and is a trait only attributed to the most legendary and ancient of shaman.
However, this alone probably would not make the wonder twins eligible to lead the tribe. Afterall, it’s not too unlikely that a Hunter could have an even more powerful ability.
It’s important to note that many cultures throughout history have put a particular emphasis on the importance of twins. Twins have always been viewed to be special, unique, having some type of connection to the paranormal or the next world, claims and theories from two individuals sharing one soul to being able to feel each other’s pain and knowing what the other one is thinking. Of course, the farther back you go there are much more powerful stories of what they can do. It was actually believed in Ancient Greece that some twins were the product of a god interfering. Take Gemeni for instance, Castor and Pollux. One of them was mortal, the other was a demigod. The idea was that Zeus took the form of a woman’s husband and did what Zeus does. Not long after the husband came in and did the same thing, much to the wife’s confusion. The result was that one of the kids was godly and the other was mortal. Basically, it showed the idea that society viewed that twins were “more”, that there was something unique to them, something supernatural and powerful. Obviously this would place the twins on a pedestal and in a tribal culture they could be given such a role as leadership. Who better to lead them than individuals who could pass by Grimm without being harassed and potentially have more power. Just look at what Raven does at the end of her conversation with Qrow in V4. We’ve seen the portal before, some have even drawn connections to the freaky eye that Salem has. But what was most interesting was the waitress’ reaction. In WoR, they mention that names are often used by Hunters as they travel between the kingdoms, meaning that the people working there would frequently see Hunters all of the time, every day. They would be walking past people with unique weapons and varying superpowers all of the time, it’s just how their world works. However, when the waitress saw Raven make the portal, she panicked and looked in shock, as if she had seen something unbelievable. Why? What if it wasn’t a Semblance, but instead something so far out there that it was alien to her. I believe that the portal is not Raven’s Semblance, I believe that that, along with turning into a bird, is some form of tribal magic. A great emphasis was put on the twins and their importance, possibly even their power. You could see how the loss of one these shamanic individuals could be devastating to their tribe, cause y’know, twins kind of come in pairs. Who knows what else they are capable of, and now that magic has been introduced into the world, the sky is literally the limit with this one.

Specialized Equipment

Corvids raising roses (Qrow, Ruby, Raven, Adam). First of all, let me say that I like all of the characters mentioned in this post for one reason or another, so I am inevitably biased. Second, a lot of observations I make are of elements that are purely visual, but then again visual elements are probably put there for a reason right? Third, I’ve only found this community recently so I don’t know if these exact observations have been made before or how popular they are, so if it turns out I’m just beating a dead horse, I apologize in advance.
This post is about how I think Qrow and Raven might be even more similar to each other than it appears at first glance, and how their similarities and differences do not just contrast with each other, but also extend to other two characters to the point that it makes them foils to each other: Ruby and Adam.
To begin with, I’m sure pretty much everyone has already noticed that Raven and Adam share quite a few traits: very similar weapon of choice and (probably) fighting style, similar style of clothes and color scheme, and wearing a grimm mask to hide their face. While I’ve seen some people theorize that he might be Raven’s son somehow, he seems to be slightly older than characters like Yang and Blake, and I think young huntress Raven might have had better things to do with her team than constantly popping out babies. What I think is something more simple, after leaving Yang, at some point Raven took a young Adam as an apprentice or protégé, or to put it another way, Raven is to Adam what Qrow is to Ruby.
But why would Raven do something like that? This leads me to my next point. There’s another unlikely character that Adam shares a surprising amount of traits with: Ruby. Both of them share the same color scheme as well, both seem to be natural born leaders to a certain extent, they also share a rose motif, and perhaps more strangely, while their semblances don’t seem to actually have much in common (Adam’s semblance resembles Yang’s if anything) they share a really distinctive visual trait: they both cause rose petals to appear around the user when the semblance is used. The fact that both semblances share such a specific visual trait even though the abilities themselves have nothing to do with each other makes it all the more suspicious to me. Of course, if my previous paragraph is correct, they also have another similarity: both of them were trained by a Branwen.
Assuming that Adam was indeed taught by Raven and the similarities in the previous paragraph are in fact intentional, then why is this the case? It’s safe to say that Ruby and Adam have never met each other and are not directly related to each other. So did they somehow pick up these traits because they were trained by the Branwen siblings? Or is it the other way around, the Branwen siblings decided to take these two under their wing (HEH) because they were already showing special traits to begin with (especially in Raven’s case, Qrow at least has the excuse of helping to raise the child of a friend) and wanted to make sure they were ready for whatever the future had in store for them (or whatever they themselves had planned for them). We already know that Ruby has a very special trait exclusive to her, her silver eyes. What about Adam? We don’t know, as the show has put special care into making sure the viewers never see Adam unmasked. Even in Raven’s case we got to see her face shortly after her first appearance, no such luck with Adam.
If it turned out that Adam is indeed another special silver eyed person, would this mean all argent warriors share extra traits other than their silver eyes, like an affinity for roses and bird-attracting pheromones? I don’t know. But for me it’s fun to see Adam as a foil to Ruby. Ruby grew up with a kind and loving family; Adam quite possibly grew up alone in a world that hated him. Ruby was trained by a Branwen who while an alcoholic, is firmly on the side of good; Adam would have been trained by a Branwen that is “dangerous”, who has an “interesting view of the world” and who abandoned her own child. Ruby is socially awkward and has trouble with people she isn’t already close with; Adam isn’t just plain socially awkward, he goes full blown psychotic when those close to him reject him. Ruby was made leader on a group that fights for justice on the side of the law; Adam was made leader on a group that supposedly fights for justice outside the law. Ruby wants to fight for what she thinks is right and protect people; Adam wants to fight for what he thinks is right and protect the faunus… by genociding humans. And so on.
I find it really interesting to imagine that Adam and Ruby might be alternate versions of each other to some extent, what they could have become if their circumstances had been different. It’s also fun to think that the Branwen siblings are mirroring each other even in ways that they themselves might not be aware of. But of course, all of this is just speculation on my part. The only thing I know for real is that I want to see Ruby and Adam clash with each other at some point in the series in a battle that is red like roses.
Thank you for reading my wishful thinking.
Edit: A couple of coincidences I forgot to add and I'm writing now just for the sake of posterity:
-Even though technically most members of the white fang wear grimm masks, in chapter 4 of volume 2 Blake heavily implies it was Adam who started this tradition (Sun: "Grimm masks? That's kinda edgy dark." Blake: "So was the guy who started it."), maybe he took the idea from someone else?
-In the black trailer, a corvid appears near the beginning of the trailer just as Adam and Blake leave the forest (similar to the red and yellow trailers), even though at this point in time Qrow would have no reason to be observing Blake or even know who she is. There is also no corvid in the remaining white trailer.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

"It's like it was just completely thrown out the window and this is a different Raven entirely."
Thank you! You're the only other person I've seen mention this, and it drives me crazy.
Raven may have not been directly mentioned until Volume 2, but in retrospect, she's been there since the Yellow Trailer; she's the one that Yang is looking for. The foundation for a future Raven-centric story arc was undeniably set in the first two volumes, with the Volume 2 stinger being the catalyst for it, but it all ended up going nowhere, and the stinger in particular was just straight-up retconned out of existence, without even so much as an "it was just a dream" excuse.
Probably the only reason they didn't retcon the train scene as well is because it was too heavily tied into the plot, so instead they came up with Raven's unbelievably arbitrary rule of only helping Yang once.
More evidence for this is her mask. She wears it to hide her Maiden powers? Okay, so why was she wearing it in Volume 2, before the Maiden subplot had yet to be conceived?
Exactly! Good point there Jonathan Sweet, Raven was set up from the very beginning and each time she was brought up it was all about how she was dangerous, or how she had a different viewpoint of the world than Qrow.
Raven was a character Monty had plans for and you could certainly tell he hyped her up, but the idea changed once he passed then Miles and Kerry took over and changed her character to what they wanted her to be. They should've went back and looked at how Raven herself was being set up by Monty himself, it isn't that hard to keep the character consistent like that. Also Raven certainly wore the mask for other reasons, not just because she was the Spring Maiden. That's just another retcon thrown out there and shows yet again another inconsistency with RWBY since Miles and Kerry took over.
Yup. And therein lies a critical problem. It leaves the impression there was no real thought or planning to these characters.
"We want all our characters bar one, to be powerful out the gate."
Vs
"Oh wait but as powerful as we make them they can't be allowed to win against this guy because logically they can't win yet. So we'll need to tone it back there"
"Yang has had the goal of tracking down her mother for answers and losing her arm changed her life."
Vs
"Yeah, but we need her not to care anymore and hurry and get back in the fight to reunite with team RWBY asap."
"Raven believes in the Strongest of the fittest"
Vs
"Yeah, but her tribe? Hell a student would have no problem."
"We think Leo is betraying us."
Vs
"Omg Leo how could you betray us?!"
On and on and on. At the moment it feels as if the characters are being jammed through whatever plot point RT is in a hurry to get over with simply because they want to get there for some reason. They want to go from beginning to immediately the end. Ignoring the all important middle, the development that connects the two. And without that required development, we get what we got.
The problem is that it sets precedence: you literally cannot trust anything another character says about someone else because they can 180 at any time. Making every single character an unreliable narrator is not a good thing. This precedence has only been strengthened by Adam.
Mind you, I think there was a need to explain Raven leaving in Volume 5, and leaving the audience to speculate has been what RWBY's done for five years now with the only deviation being to throw a twist out. Volume 5 can best be described as "it won't have the same hype."
This entire Volume was full of the moments that not only should've blown us away, but are moments that cannot be repeated with the same level of hype they had. Yang finally meeting with Raven? Absolutely one of them. This should have been the moment where we at least got a taste of the real answer Raven left at minimum. Why?
Because frankly, no other way would be or will be as satisfying as that. It's the moment we were waiting for. The moment Yang's entire character was built around. From her first appearance being her searching for information on Raven to V2's half-broken confession that the question of "Why" has been following her always.
And they didn't touch a goddamn thing. Raven just sidestepped Yang's question and Yang sat there and took it without a single complaint.
If there was one thing that should've been explained, it should've been Raven's reason for leaving. If not in their first meeting, their likely final(alone) one in the vault.

Education

Maaaaannn...Raven was so hauntingly cool when she saved Yang on the train.
Imagine if the vol 2 cliffhanger was still canon and Raven’s abilities were something like she can travel through dimensions – including dreams or realms where the dead exist – to the people that she has a bond with (and she could have conversations with people in those realms too).
That could be so badass... ( ；∀；)

Morality & Philosophy

It's more of a "Who hunts the Huntsmen?" type deal. We have seen what a rogue huntsman can do. Raven is literally killing other Huntsmen and raiding villages. Seriously, Qrow and Tai speak of Raven like she simply lives a quiet life in the woods and just didn't want a family. What the hell is wrong with them? Why are they not stopping her? That should be their job, right?

Social

Family Ties

Something that still baffles me is that she left her family to be responsible for a whole camp of bandits while she didn't choose to stay and be responsible for one child. Miles and Kerry can't stare me in the face and tell me rising a single child is harder than protecting some tribe of bandits. In fact, if she raised Yang herself that would have given us something to empathize with. Also, I'm just going to assume that Raven isn't the first bandit in her world to birth a child, lol (remember that Mistral was supposed to have a really seedy underbelly that we never got to see?). But fuck it, that's trotting into world building territory and we all know Miles and Kerry are just terrible at that.
What up with Raven's tribe? What the f was that? Raven, one of the strongest huntresses we know, famous for scaring off Neo with a single look after she beat Yang into a pulp without breaking a sweat... The Branwen, Leader of the Branwen Tribe (or whatever), who ditched Tai and her Daughter to be with her people...
And now what? Her tribe consists out of a bunch of goons, who Yang can beat up 12 before breakfast on her own? I though Raven was leading a strong tribe of bandits, not a bunch of people fighting with scrap-metal swords and cheap guns...
I am just really disappointed. I though Raven valued strength above all, yet her bandits didn't look particularly strong. They didn't look like they could fight off a single weak Grimm - the one Yang defeated in her Trailer for this episode could probably wipe out the entire camp (excluding ofcourse Raven and the maiden)... They didn't even had some token strong people like Chainsaw-guy of the white fang. No just Raven, the maiden and a bunch of cheap extras.

Social Aptitude

I excepted Raven to be True Neutral and Balanced character, Rebellion against Salem and Ozpin for sake of Summer and humanity in harmony. I really wanted Raven to be a third faction in volume five but they pushed her to the side for no real reason i mean she has a lot of potential as a character. I think that would've been the best for Raven if they just decided to actually make her as a third faction. Raven could've had her motive be to change the world in her image to make it better in her eyes and she could've been cryptic about Ozpin and Salem until she could reveal the truth to Yang. I think that would've been the perfect role for Raven.

Divine Classification

Maiden

Character Prototype

Allusions- Munin, General Hyoe Tadokoro, Princess Yuki, Julia, Vicious, Faye Valentine, Balrog, Van Hohenheim, F!Morgan( Fire Emblem: Awakening).