Monday, September 3, 2018

Character Analysis:Weiss Schnee


Backstory

The heiress of worldwide conglomerate called the Schnee dust company. Weiss has lived a life of hardship due to her family’s questionable business practices and racism towards a human like species called faunus, making them the target for political extremists. Additionally due to a strained and loveless marriage between her parents, her home life is essentially fractured, with the sole exception being her relationship with her sister Winter. Growing up in this environment has essentially turned Weiss into a bit of a sheltered and bitchy child(though she grows out of this eventually). Though regardless of her disposition, her status required her to be trained in various aspects of life considered paramount to the pedigree of the Schnee family. A big one in particular being the art of combat, something her sister Winter has spent much time tutoring her in.

You see in the rwby series the world is overrun by horrible race of creatures known as grim, who constantly seek to wipe out mankind. To combat this many humans called huntsman use dust, as well as mystical abilities called aura, to fight them off. Weiss herself throughout her training aspired to become one of these warriors and eventually sought to attend a combat school known as beacon.

After proving herself to her family, she was allowed to attend, and it was here that she first came into contact with the character ruby rose. While initially getting off on the wrong foot, ruby eventually become one of Weiss’s closest friends and as well as the leader of her combat unit at beacon, RWBY. Over the course of her time at beacon she aided her teammates in various training sessions, as well as stopping various criminal schemes spearheaded by the villains Roman Torchtwick and Cinder fall. This didn’t last forever though and eventually the plans of Cinder fall came to a head with a wide scale invasion of beacon, which ended in the collapse of all its facilities and the death of one of Weiss’s close friends.

Since then Weiss has been though…..a lot. She’s forcibly held in her own house by her family, has escaped her forced captivity to travel to a neighboring land called mistral to attempt a meet up with her sister, has been captured by a band of outlaws lead by the character Raven, escaped from her and so on. Though at the moment she seems to have finally reunited with her old team and seems poised to help take down the series main villain Salem.

Weapons

Myrtenaster
A silver rapier with a revolving storage unit in the hilt that contains multiple canisters of a magical ammunition known as dust. Despite the weapons frame, it is extremely durable, and can be used to harm opponents with superhuman durability and slice across other weapons like chainsaws without breaking. It serves as Weiss’s default and go to means of offense in a fight.

Abilities

Aura
Aura is essentially a soul based source of mythical power characters can tap into to perform various superhuman feats. Its most common use is to wrap a characters body in protective force field, which can lessen or block the damage of lethal blows and attacks. It can also be used to enhance physical strength and speed, as well as enhance the power of certain weapons or induce healing of minor or major wounds. Aura is a finite resource with each character having varying amounts of Aura they can draw from in a single battle. This finite stock of Aura depletes as they use it to block attacks, or enhance their own abilities, somewhat like Ki in dragon ball. If a characters aura is fully depleted they will not die from it, but they will be much weaker, and susceptible to lethal attacks if they are hit point blank.


 Semblance/Glyphs
In addition to basic Aura, characters in the rwby can also wield another power called semblance. These “semblances” are special abilities utilized by manipulating ones aura in a more tangible and concentrated form. Semblances are typically unique to the individual, though in some cases they can be hereditary. Think of them essentially like quirks from my hero academia. Because semblances are fueled by aura, running out of aura also naturally prevents a character from using their semblance.

Weiss has a hereditary semblance called glyph, which allows her to summon magical Glyphs projections into existence in the air or along the ground. These glyphs can change orientation in mid-air and become selectively tangible according to Weis’s wishes, allowing objects to pass through them or acting like solid platforms she can stand on or use to block the physical attacks of opponents. They also have a notable attribute in that they can propel and catapult objects that touch them or come within their general vicinity. This can allow Weiss to use them to increase her running speed, get around a battlefield by jumping off them in midair, or catapult opponents (or objects) away from her at high velocities.


Being used as platforms and air propulsion

Being used to enhance running speed or for forward propulsion

Propelling opponents of objects

As barriers



Dust
A naturally occurring energy propellant activated primarily by exposure to aura. It can be used raw or as ammunition to produce a variety of elemental effects, and can be combined with the semblances of a huntsman to create unique “elementally altered” semblances. Weiss specifically has 6 vials of dust stored in the hilt of Manchester. One for fire, wind, ice, gravity, lightning, and an unnamed cyan dust respectively.


Ice dust
Ice dust is the most commonly used dust in Weiss’s arsenal. In its raw form it can creates large bursts of icicles that can trap or freeze opponents. In its raw form it can also ground laden ice slip traps, which can be combined with fire to make a battlefield cover fog good for stealth. When ice dust is combined with Weise’s glyph semblance, she can actively form the ice into whatever shape she wants. Ranging from physical structure that can act like barriers, swords, icicle projectiles, giant ice fists, or giant spikes capable of impaling foes.

Raw:
Making lines of ice


Making slip traps


With glyphs:
Forming weapons

Forming projectiles

Creating shields


           Misc
    • Directing ice a grim to freeze it in v6 ep 1 https://roosterteeth.com/episode/rwby-volume-6-1 
    • Making an ice slide v6 ch 11 https://roosterteeth.com/episode/rwby-volume-6-11 

Fire dust
Weiss can use fire dust raw to add a fire element to her rapier attacks or shoot streams of fire out of her rapier as a mid-range attack. When combined with her glyph semblance she can miniature direct fire balls at opponents from a as a projectile attack.

 Raw:

With glyphs:


Wind dust
Wind elemental dust. In its raw form Weiss can use it to make powerful wind slice rapier slashes, as well as project miniature tornados at an opponent. When combine with glyphs she can projected a powerful blast of wind energy that can push opponents back and take them off balance.

 Raw:

With glyphs:


 Lightning dust
Lightning based dust. Weiss uses this most consistently in combination with her glyphs, giving them a time dilation ability that temporarily increases the speed of any characters that come into contact with them for a short time(think haste from an RPG). She also seems to use this dust in its raw form in the white trailer, using it enhance the power and speed of a rapier strike(it’s not outright stated, but the yellow dust is most prominently shown before the finishing strike, and was the only other dust type not used up until that point in the trailer.

Raw:

With glyphs:


Hard light dust
A cyan dust.  When used in its raw form it projects energy barriers that can be used to block enemy attacks. When combined with glyphs they can shoot powerful cyan laser projectiles over hundreds of feet. The projectiles can also be used to trap opponents by immobilizing them in miniature glyphs that appear on contact with their body.

Raw:

With glyphs:
Projectiles:

Restraints:


Gravity dust
The final type of dust in Weiss’s arsenal. Weiss almost never uses gravity dust on its raw form, and instead primarily uses it to alter her glyph semblance. These gravity altered glyphs have the ability to pull objects towards them, allowing them to be used to strengthen her stance against attacks or take opponents off guard by pulling them to a different position. Additionally objects that pass through the glyphs while they are in midair get accelerated, making them great for enhancing the power of physical strikes. Gravity dust glyphs also retain many of the attributes of Weiss’s standard glyphs. This include the ability to propel things and the ability to become selectively intangible.

 Pulling opponents:


Being used to enhance her stance:


Acceleration:


Normal glyph properties:


Earth dust
Only recently used by Weiss, and I've only seen it used with glyphs. It creates giant walls of stone that can block projectiles, and prooably hit people as well. It's possible Weiss might be combining two varieties of dust to get the earth dust effects, or that she switched out certain dust varieties from her weapon in vol 6, as the weapon doesn't have more than 6 chambers in it.

  • V 6 ch 11 2:57 https://roosterteeth.com/episode/rwby-volume-6-11 2:57

Summoning

A special ability unique to the Schnee bloodline. Essentially it allows the user to use glyphs to summon energy projections of enemies they’ve defeated before in the past. The only requirement being that they have to be an opponent that forced them to push themselves past their normal limitation. The time it takes to perform a summon varies. Larger or more powerful ones typically require a few seconds of concentration to call out, and can be instantly destroyed or interrupted if Weiss is attacked during the summoning process.  Weiss can also choose to partially summon small segments of certain creatures or at varying sizes, which takes less effort. Weiss can also teleport her summons from the surface of her glyphs, and direct their movements without a direct line of site, though this seems to take some concentration on her part. Summons are not invincible and if destroyed, will need to be summoned again.


Boarbatusk
A giant pig like grim. It attacks opponents with powerful dashing attacks, and can spin into a ball to ram into people in a similar fashion to sonic the hedgehog. It has an armored back and a soft underbelly. Weiss first defeated it in v1 ch10.

Arma gigas
Weiss’s most commonly used summon. It’s based on a grim possessed suit of armor she fights in the white trailer. The Arma gigas essentially fights like a giant knight with a longsword, slashing opponents apart while utilizing a surprising amount of dexterity. 


Queen lancer
A giant bee like grim, Weiss defeated in v5 ch 2. It has the ability to fly, as well shoot stringers as a projectile attack. It can also shoot a harpoon like stringer that can pull opponents or objects to its position for follow up attacks.



Feats

Strength


Speed/agility

Endurance


Scaling

So who does Weiss scale to? Logically any huntsman of similar experience or age, such as the other members of rwby, the members of Jnpr(except maybe pyra given she was stated to be a massive stand out), the other Beacon combat squads, along with most lower level grim and mooks used by Cinder and Roman. She most likely shouldn’t scale to characters with the abilities of the fall maidens, since it’s established they’re supposed to have abilities and powers unique and extraordinary compared to the average huntress, as well as more seasoned huntsman like her sister or high level grim.
Speed

Strength

Endurance


Training/Experience


  • Defeated the grim possessed arma gigas armor
  • Trained for combat significant portions of her life by her older sister Winter
  • Attended the huntsman’s training academy beacon, and became a member of the ops team rwby after a training session in the emerald forest.
  • Aided in defeating the Atesian paladin mech piloted by the villain Roman.
  • Aided in fending of a vast number of grim, after they breached the walls of beacon
  • Entered and aided her team in competing in the vytal festival battle tournament
  • Aided in the battle of beacon invasion staged by the character Cinder
  • Escaped from being imprisoned by her family and traveled to mistral
  • Aided in fighting off Cinder and Salem’s forces in Haven.

Weaknesses

Weiss doesn’t have a lot of glaring weakness, though she tend to depend more on her finesse and special dust abilities rather than her raw physical stats. This tends to lead to her being one of the easier members of rwby to beat via brute force. Additionally some of her summons can be extremely difficult to use in one on one fights, due to the fact they take time/concentration to call forth, and Weiss is fairly vulnerable to attack when doing it.

Summary
Advantages

  • Can trap and freeze opponents with Ice
  • Can control the battlefield to an extent with glyphs
  • Has excellent mobility and stance due to her glphs ability to move her around
  • Can increase her speed via time dilation
  • Can summon various grim and monsters to aid her in fights
  • Has various projectiles for attacking from a distance
  • Has various elemental attacks at her disposal
Disadvantages

  • Aura is finite
  • Some summons can be difficult to utilized in one on one fights.





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