Cixalea's Over-Analyzation Station: RWBY White

Okie dokie. Here are just a few (haha) theories, remarks, reactions, and whatever else my mind decided to think about in regards to the latest installment of RWBY trailers.

I over-anaylzed this. You have been warned.

Okay, first off: Color Symbolism

Obviously RWBY stands for Red White Black Yellow. We all know this. However, in literature (at least according to my writing professor) colors mean certain things.
Red -pain, danger, blood
White -life, innocence, purity
Black -death
Yellow -enlightenment and/or blindness
[other colors:
Grey -life AND death (not OR)
Brown -earth, nature
Green -rebirth, new life
Purple -royalty, nobility
Pink -femininity
Blue -water (life)]

Appearance:
We first see Weiss, and our eyes are drawn immediately (or at least easily distracted by) the bright red that is on the inside of her collar and boots. She’s wearing white mostly which we expect seeing as this is the White trailer, but we’re struck by the bright red.
White, as I explained earlier, is the symbol of life, innocence, and purity.
Red, however, is the symbol of pain.
White is in pain inside. Underneath all the life she might represent somehow or regardless of how innocent and pure she might look on the outside, she is in pain. White pain. Pure pain.

Next on her outfit, is the black undershirt-thing. Black represents death. (White is wearing this black, frilly cami of sorts that, like a shirt does, hugs her close and is around her chest area. White is dead where her heart and lungs should be. All the organs that make her live are covered by this black shirt. However, because she is wearing white over it, we only see a glimpse of the death that is underneath. She is dead inside.

Also, her tiara-type hair-thing that in in the base of her ponytail is black. If we’re going with the princess!Weiss theory, she would be the princess of death. Or, being princess is killing her. Whichever you think is better.

Finally, her dress tapers off to a shade of blue. Her eyes are a light blue as well. Combine that with the white, and we have purity tapering to life. And she is seeing with life eyes. White sees what is really going on. She sees more to life. She sees that this audition is not the thing that matters, and she’s too honest, too pure, to play the part and fake that she’s having fun or enjoying this like the audience would expect her to. She’s a warrior. She’s lonely and they don’t care.

The Symbol:
When the song begins and we see a wider shot of her from the front, we see a white symbol above her in the back ground. This symbol is the same design that is on her back which looks remarkably like a snowflake. It is also the symbol that she uses when she uses her spells. This could either be confirming her as a princess or it could be linking her to a sort of allegiance to a people, kind of like a national flag or something. On a side note, with fighting!Weiss, the building being black in the background includes this symbol that is hanging in the window. With fighting!Weiss, this symbol is death.

The Setting:
We get a better idea of what the RWBY universe is. We kinda knew that it was a technologically modern world or at least steampunk in Ruby’s advanced sniper-scythe. We see here in the stadium that they have electric lights as well as flash cameras. This is a fairly modern society with a regal-ish, medieval feel to it.

The Quote:
I quickly googled, and I couldn’t find a source anywhere. I assume that it is original to RWBY. It’s talking about sorrow which I can assume goes along with the background song’s words “Who is the loneliest?”

Fulfilling the Red Trailer Song Prophesy:
“White is cold” She never smiles. The only time she smiles is in the group sketch at the end. Yes, like Ruby, she’s fighting so it wouldn’t make sense to smile, but, when it cuts to her singing, she is never smiling. Even after the show is over and the audience is applauding her, she isn’t smiling. I’m not saying that she’s a cold person as in mean but that she is cold as in absent of warmth -dead inside. She’s not emotionless, mind you, just expressionless. No one regards her feelings, and she’s lonely because of it.

“And always yearning” In the trailer song, “Mirror, Mirror”, we hear over and over again that she is asking “Who is the loneliest?” If we’re going with the theory that she is royalty, I can see her being lonely and maybe “always yearning” for friends or companions. Or maybe she’s “always yearning” to escape the pressures of her life. I’m just gonna take a shot in the dark that she did not enjoy one second of her performance.

The Song, “Mirror, Mirror”:
Okay, we kinda saw the theme with Red in Ruby’s Red Riding Hood. Many people started to think that RWBY was going to be sort of fairytale!verse. We are again confirmed in this when the song is entitled “Mirror, Mirror” which everyone knows is an allusion to the fairytale Snow White.
However, we get a twist when the line does not follow the traditional “who is the fairest one of all?”, but instead asks, “who is the loneliest of all?” She concludes at the end that she is the loneliest one of all. No mirror told her that. She came up with the conclusion herself.
“Tell me, can a heart be turned to stone?” Also, it makes allusion to mythology. In the Perseus myth, Perseus has to get the head of Medusa to save Princess Andromeda from a sea monster. Medusa’s head could turn anything she looked at into stone. So, to be able to see her, he uses the reflection, a mirror, of his shield to see her without actually looking at her. However, in this, she’s asking if the mirror can turn a heart to stone. She’s not asking the mirror to prevent her heart from turning to stone. She’s asking if it can. Is this mirror that could possibly turn a heart to stone the pressures or burdens that she’s dealing with?
Keeping true to the Red trailer song, “Mirror, Mirror” has Weiss yearning, pleading, crying out in every line except the last where she finally comes with the conclusion that she is the loneliest of all.
A later line mentions that she is trying to hide from the things she sees. “Save me from the things I see.” From the second she starts to sing to the second it ends, singing!Weiss has her eyes closed. She is not looking at the audience. We aren’t sure what she is trying to not see other than the audience. It might be herself. After all, it mentions also in the song that she’s trying to not see herself, but the mirror won’t let her. “Why won’t you let me hide from me?”

First scene.
After someone on Tumblr gave me some clarification, the announcer says:
“Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting: Weiss Schnee.”
And Weiss Schnee “…translates roughly to Snow White.”
So, she’s almost auditioning something. Is this her “royal test”? Or maybe she’s just simply preforming for them. I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.

Next, once again, if my ears are hearing right, this is the first time we have the name of one of the RWBY characters announced in the trailer itself. This is also another case for her being a princess or at least famous because the audience seems to know who she is.

Transition to battle:
We see her and her “reflection” standing there as if she is standing not on a stage but a mirror. However, you probably noticed that the singing Weiss has her ponytail on the right side of her head with her eyes closed. The “reflection” of Weiss has the ponytail on her right instead of mirrored on the left and her eyes are open. This is not really her reflection at all. This is Weiss standing upside-down. We are either looking at two separate worlds, or we are flashing back/transitioning to a memory.

Also, where she is singing, the background reveals white, cathedral-like walls with blacked-out windows. When we go into the memory, we see the same background, but the walls are black and white light it pouring in. And, instead of singing to a crowd, she’s battling an armor-monster (that sort of reminds me of something from Zelda or Kingdom Hearts). Either this is a memory that she is being reminded of which I think is the case, or she is in two separate places/parallel universes or something at once. However, because we see her scar on her eye before we see how it happened in the fighting cutscenes, I really think that this is a flashback.

Battle:
The monster/knight/opponent that appears is kneeling to her at first. It is either some sort of statue thing that woke up from that position when she came or it was kneeling to her in respect because she is a princess. Either one is plausible.
I also think it’s something to mention that White is left handed. (Reminds me of the movie The Princess Bride XD)
Also, White is able to use magic as well as change abilities with her sword based on the color. I think it’s funny how the first color-power she uses is not white but red. She delivers the finishing blow with white, but I think it’s interesting that she leads with red (pain).

The Moon:
In the background, similar to the Red trailer, we see the moon. The moon is not full like it was in Ruby’s. The moon here is covered partially on the right side in darkness. In this case, it would be a waning gibbous meaning that it is going toward a new moon –a moon completely shrouded in darkness. And, as we can see, this moon’s darkness doesn’t look natural.
Also, when fighting!Weiss is injured, the stadium where singing!Weiss is blacks out for dramatic effect, I assume. The moon illuminates her, and it seems fighting!Weiss finds her second wind. I’m not sure if that was to add to the drama or if the moon is significant to Weiss and/or her powers. However, when the battle is over, she doesn’t even see the audience. She looks to the moon. Whether this means that she could care less about the audience or something else is more is plausible.