Salem

Oh my god, this video got me thinking of so many plot holes.
Like, why does Salem have her goons sneak into Beacon and sow discord at the Vytal games in order to let the Grimm invade, when she could just...y'know...let the Grimm invade? She commands Grimm doesn't she? Wouldn't she get the relic a lot faster that way?
And why does Salem trust any of her incompetent henchmen? We still have zero concrete backstory for any of them besides Mercury. It seems to me she could be a lot more efficient if she, as Hazel explained in V6's stinger, just did everything herself. Why does she need any of them? Why does she need Cinder to hold the maiden powers when she could go out and kill the maidens herself, becoming extra powerful at her pretty fireworks magic?
Why doesn't she go out and exterminate humanity in place of the Gods, without fearing everybody knowing her name or uniting against her, so she can grab the stinking relics and summon the Gods so she can either kill them or be killed. If her entire goal is a suicide mission, why doesn't she just do it this way? It's a lot faster. If her entire goal is to extinct humanity, why doesn't she just do it this way? It's a lot faster. And if her entire goal is to do both of these things, why doesn't she just do it this way? It's a lot faster.
All of RWBY just broke for me guys.

A really good analysis of the villains of RWBY, with this final part focusing on Salem.
I find she brings up a lot of great points, I'm particularly interested in the section where she came up with the idea of aligning Salem's faction to team RWBY making them all rivals with conflicting ideologies of some sort. I think that's a great idea, I'm always down for a good rivalry.
One point I disagree with in this video tho is the merit in Salem's backstory. I don't find that episode to be particularly compelling at all. Narration and dialogue are a little bit too long winded and crossing a bit too much into the Tell territory and not enough Show like their intention was. I get that it was supposed to simulate a fairy tale of sort, but a lot of the narration just turned out to be redundant as the scene is Showing us viewers right on screen, and the narration could've been written way better still, imo.
One thing I want to point out is that her statement of "It's a fairy tale. It's a simple story to tell a larger moral" is incorrect. The Lost Fable is not an in-universe fairy tale told to the characters, it is a real in-universe event told in the style of a fairy tale, key difference there. All of the questions that Judgemental Critter asks, such as "why/how did they fall in love so quickly?", "how did she find the lands of the gods?" and so many more questions could (and probably should) have been asked to the characters that lived through that event. This possibility wouldn't be, well, possible if it was "just a fairy tale".
Also, what is even the "message" that we're supposed to get anyways? Nothing about the events before Salem's "punishment" paints the picture for me that she "doesn't appreciate life". If the sequence and events were re-written and re-ordered to paint that message then I could see that being the "moral" of the story. A good example of in-universe fairy tales done right is in the opening of Watership Down( the animated version, I haven't seen the live-action version yet), as it feels like actual mythology.
"All the world will be your enemy, O Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And if they catch you, they will kill you. But first, they must catch you. Digger. Listener. Runner. Prince with a swift walk." - Frith to El-ahrairah
A lot of invented mythology in fiction for me usually doesn't feel quite right, lacking the part where it must not only explain, but also teach. Not only does the myth in Watership Down sound right, but the placement of the fairy tale at the opening of the movie (as opposed to six feature-length movies in RWBY, with V6C3 being smack in the beginning of "Act 2" in the "6th movie") is a wise choice. It immediately makes it clear to us about two things: 1) the life of a rabbit is hard, and 2) That the creatures in Watership Down are in some ways analogous to us, but they are not us in fur coats.
Also, I don't believe that V6C3 even revealed Salem's goals and motivations because I have seen no less than a dozen different answers to the questions "What does Salem want?" and "Why does she want it?" after this episode. Some answers are within the same ball park, and some answers are the complete opposite of other answers. This tells me that the storytelling for the episode was very murky, which is the opposite of what good storytelling is supposed to be: deliver information in an entertaining way that is clear but not spoon-fed. Not to "kick an episode while it's down", but The Lost Fable is a really good example of why I'm against the opinion that RWBY would be better if it had a longer run-time. The Lost Fable is one of, if not the longest episode of the show so far and as I've already stated, it couldn't get most of the community on the same track of such an important question like "What does the main villian want?".
Regardless, this was a great analysis of the RWBY villians and how at least some of them could be improved. I really love the idea of making team WTCH the rivals for team RWBY, as I feel that that would give the story some much needed depth.

Physical Description

Special abilities

The dark portals that show up throughout the show could be a Rose family technique, which is why you see Salem, Raven and Summer use it.
Salem invented a way to infect Dust with Grimm. Well, she is displayed in front of large eldritch quarry with sinister gleaming crystals, resembling Dust, but with dark-black-reddish-violet color, previously unshown to Dust to be. Seems like even intelligent Grimm couldn't utilize Dust before, and that was part of humanity's advantage in war. That could also be that terrible things "she's building", that scared Qrow.
Alternatively, she can use it to contaminate Schnee's Dust production, due to dubious means Weiss' father is famous it won't be hard to do, so that use of that corrupted Dust could summon or propagate Grimm/cause tech to malfunction or even turn against humans/infect users, turning them into Grimm…

Mental characteristics

Personal history

My real issue with Salem is that we need to wait until Season 4 for her to reveal her big world-destroying plans and motivations and relevance... which is kind of late in the game, honestly. Four feature length movies in, and we'll have the chance to (hopefully!) learn about the Villain Behind The Villain Behind The Villain. Haven't we been here before, with Cinder making her first ominous appearance at the end of Season 1?
Fatman I just thought of a major plot hole that I thought you should share with the rest of FRBT in the next session. That is, if Salem wants to reunite the artifacts and doom humanity from judgement of the Gods, why the hell doesn't she do it herself? The flashbacks show that she isn't restricted to the Grimm lands and she's capable of living on her own. If she can't be defeated due to her immortality, then why not just go and one-shot each academy with her magic instead of relying on an incompetent Illuminati to realize her plans.
So let me understand this.Salem can make will shattering and titan sized grimm rather casually,and also use town destroying magic combined with literal immortality,but cant beat a guy who cinder soloed?
Like,the whole point of this story revolves around that whole plot point,and yet we keep cutting to scenes that further make you question who this story is ACTUALLY about.
You know what seeing this statement made me realize that Salem can literally just go to every kingdom and wreak havoc with ease. Idk why she just started moving now
It's a question they need to answer and soon, what is stopping Salem from making a mount and flying to each and every kingdom/civilized area and razing them to the ground? We already know she doesn't give a shit about humanity. Even if every huntsmen, Faunus and human being equipped with every spec of Dust on the planet hit her, she would still win via attrition.
I dropped RWBY at volume 6 episode 3. Salem’s back story was so dumb. Yep and she's suppose to be the final villain of the series and they gave her a shitty motivation for her evil deed like really? As well as not knowing what she wants. My biggest problem with it was the narration directly contradicting what was shown, when she fell into the Grimm pool, Jinn was like “the pool created a being solely bent on destruction” (something like that) then literally Salem’s next scene was her living in a house for thousands of years. Um, excuse me? And then after Ozpin was defeated, she decided to not be worshipped anymore & stay in a house for thousands of years. Again. Why? If a villain has to wait for their plan, give them a good reason to wait. Exactly, it didn't made any sense, also let's not forget that she knows that if the four relics unite, it can summon the gods (whom she hates) back to the world, like why would you want to gather the relics for if they are meant to summon the very beings that you have a grudge against, she decided to give up her kingdom and went into hiding instead off building an empire consist of people who follow your order and have tamed grimms so that your subjects can ride them into battle and take over world and imprisoned Ozma's soul so that he can never mess with you again, like really? God the villains in the series are so useless that is honestly sad. Salem’s motivation and backstory is dumber than people realize. If she is all powerful and immortal, then why do she need people to do her dirty work. She can easily wipe out anyone who is against. So I guess her motivation is laziness. In fact I’d have to say Neo is a better antagonist than Salem. She had reason to wait for two whole Volumes, as she didn’t know when Salem’s posse was going to attack Haven or where they were, but she knew that they were going to attack Haven. After the battle of Haven, she used Romans resources to figure out where Cinder was since she apparently disappeared. Like damn an antagonist that doesn’t talk has a more coherent plot line then the main villain. That’s sad. I love Neo, but that’s pitiful. True Neo and Roman are better antagonists than Salem and her faction imo.

Mental Trauma

The reason why Salem doesn't come to human civilization herself is because the closer she gets to civilization, the intensity of her feeling all the negativity in the world grows and it causes her immense pain.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

Salem is actually a Well-Intentioned Extremist. Listen to Divide. It seems she's angry at Ozpin—Which she is—for something in the past. Perhaps they worked together once, leading Hunters into battle before something caused the rift between them, and sees what she's doing in anger-filled hate is actually what she believes to be retribution for Ozpin's wrongs?
Salem wants humanity destroyed because like all Grimm she can sense negative emotions. But her variation is much more finely tuned to the point that she can sense it from anywhere on the planet. It also manifests for her in a way that she utterly hates like a severe nauseous sensation that she's always feeling or a loud booming voice that is never quiet. She wants to end humanity so she can finally be at peace.

Social

Family Ties

Expand on Salem and Cinder’s "mother/daughter" relationship and how that has affected them as characters. For example, Salem takes Cinder in because she cannot sense her negative emotions, like how Shogo Makishima of Psycho Pass can’t have his crime coefficient checked.
Salem is Ozpin's sister. I think I can safely say that Ozpin and Salem once viewed each other as family. The theory goes that the two are incredibly old beings about four or five times as powerful as a maiden. The two grew alongside humanity and held what at the time seemed a minor argument about humanity's values. Salem liked humanity and wanted to see it prosper while Ozpin hated humanity to the point of either creating Grimm or making an attack that led to the introduction of Dust. Either way after this humans began to see Ozpin and Salem as an evil pair of spellcasters. They attacked them with Dust. Maiming Salem and driving Ozpin into a depression. Then the four maidens happen and Salem and Ozpin's views on humanity switch leading to a long conflict.
Salem is an ancestor of the Rose family. She is at minimum thousands of years old so her having started a family isn't that out of the question. Said family being the Rose family would certainly explain Ozpin's apparent affinity for Ruby and her mother. When it's revealed to Ruby it will only harden her resolve to keep fighting.
To go off on the above, Salem has Resurrective Immortality. Much like Ozpin she can also return from being killed but it functions differently from his. She is much harder to kill but as a trade off she can only resurrect through a specific family line. That family is the Rose family and Ozpin keeps that information very well hidden because if it got out then the family would be hunted down and killed to ensure Salem never returns, something Ozpin would never agree with as he certainly doesn't agree with something that drastic.
Salem’s newest host is Summer Rose. Cinder hasn’t seen Salem’s newest host since she went to Atlas so is shocked to see her Master look so much like on of her enemies.
Possibly under some form of Demonic Possession. This would explain why Raven is acting on her own like she is (and why she's so cold and distant to everyone but her brother), and possibly why Qrow is as evasive as he is when talking about Summer Rose (and may explain why he seems so sure Ozpin isn't dead). Raven tipped him off, be it on accident or on purpose, that Summer is alive, but only in the sense that she's not physically dead. Raven is working to take her down on her own terms and gather intel on her, and if Team RNJR pursues her, they'll meet with Raven. Qrow certainly will.
Ignoring all the above, the Lord Grimm possessing Summer Rose could be used as an allusion to Red Riding Hood. We often see Grimm in the form of wolves, and for their alpha to possess Ruby’s mother could be interpreted as a twisted reference to the original tale of the Big Bad wolf dressed in the grandmother’s clothes, only this time the enemy’s wears the body of a fallen maternal figure to hurt the heroine.

Character Prototype

Allusions- Sauron, Evil Stepmother, Emperor Palpatine, Maleficent, Kishin Asura, Dwarf in the Flask (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood), Dante (Fullmetal Alchemist 2003).