Main Characters | Supporting Characters | Antagonists (Darth Nihilus) | Remnant | The Galaxy
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Supporting Characters
Glynda Goodwitch
Professor Glynda Goodwitch
Species: Human (Remnantian)
Debut: Dreams
A professional Huntress and a teacher at Beacon Academy.- Arbitrary Skepticism: Averted. Because she's worked with Ozpin and knows about his reincarnations, she has no trouble believing Jaune's Sarcastic Confession that he's possessed by the spirit of a Grimm warlord.
- Ascended Extra: She has a more prominent role in the story than her canonical counterpart, being upgraded to major supporting character status and given her own POV sections.
- Badass Teacher: She's the combat instructor at Beacon and a powerful Huntress in her own right.
- Beneath the Mask: Her demeanor as a no-nonsense Stern Teacher is largely a mask that she puts on when in the presence of her students. She's actually empathetic, understanding, and protective towards her students, but hides it in order to prepare them for the hardships of life as a Huntsman or Huntress.
- Death Glare: Gives one to the terentatek after managing to pierce its hide and draw blood during their fight.
- Disabled in the Adaptation: This version becomes bound to a wheelchair following the Fall of Beacon due to injuries she sustained during her battle with Darth Nihilus.
- Excellent Judge of Character: Following Jaune displaying the full extent of his Force powers during the Breach, Ozpin briefly wonders if Jaune is a spy sent by Salem. Glynda determines that Jaune isn't a spy by noticing how he jumped in to save his teammates and seemed genuinely upset to see them get hurt. She points out that if Jaune were a spy, he would have let his teammates die and use their deaths to be Beneath Suspicion, rather than risk his life to rescue them.
- Hidden Depths: While giving Jaune dating advice, she implied that she never really took the time to enjoy her childhood and deeply regrets it.
- High-Heel Power: When she's at her most intimidating, her presence is often announced by the clicking sounds of her heels.
- Last-Name Basis: She addresses her students by their last names to maintain professionalism.
- The Mentor: To Jaune. She helps him master his Force powers after mistakingly believing that he has a telekinetic Semblance much like hers.
- Mind over Matter: Her Semblance is Telekinesis and she is a proficient user of it.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Glynda normally puts up a calm and aloof exterior, so when she loses her composure, it means something really serious is going on.
- She normally acts like a Stern Teacher and is on a Last-Name Basis with her students. When the terentatek attacks JNPR and nearly kills Jaune, she starts to call out to her JNPR and RWBY by their first names due to the severity of the situation.
- Due to being under stress after learning that Jaune was possessed by an evil spirit, Glynda hits the Rage Breaking Point when she walks in on Qrow, Winter, and Ironwood arguing with each other like children. This gets all three to immediately stop fighting and even Ozpin is taken aback by her emotional outburst as it is unlike how she normally is.
- Purple Is Powerful: Whenever she uses her telekinesis, a purple glow surrounds the object or individual that she is using her Semblance on.
- Stern Teacher: She comes off as a strict disciplinarian. Subverted later on when it's revealed that this is mostly an act she puts up because she wants to make sure her students can handle the hardships that professional Huntsmen face.
- Tough Love: She acts stern and stoic towards her students because she wants to ready them for the difficult life of a Huntsman.
- Whip of Dominance: She's a Stern Teacher whose weapon of choice is a riding crop, often using it as a means to intimidate her listeners when she needs to punctuate her words for emphasis.
Professor Ozpin
Ozpin
Species: Human (Remnantian)
Debut: Dreams
The enigmatic headmaster of Beacon Academy. He is the reincarnation of Ozma, a warrior who lived eons ago during an age when magic was commonplace among humanity. He was cursed by the Two Brothers to possess the body of a random individual every time his current incarnation dies.
- Big Good: He's the leader of a Benevolent Conspiracy whose aim is to protect humanity from Salem and the Grimm.
- Big "NO!": Says this in response to Pyrrha's suggestion that they remove Nihilus from Jaune's body by letting Cinder drain Jaune's powers like she did with Amber.
- Broken Pedestal: Becomes one to Blake after he chooses to cover up the Fall of Beacon and lie to the media by claiming that the White Fang were solely responsible for the attack. It's implied that this led to Blake losing her faith in him and is a major reason why she suddenly chose to run away.
- The Chooser of the One: He chooses Pyrrha to be the next Fall Maiden.
- Classy Cane
- Forced Sleep: He knows an advanced variation of Force Stun that magically lulls people unconscious. He uses this to briefly incapacitate Nihilus in "Sorry" while Penny tries removing the latter's mask.
- Guile Hero
- Guilt Complex
- Manipulative Bastard: A benevolent example. He picks Pyrrha as the new Fall Maiden because he knows that Jaune is fiercely loyal to her and wants to use Pyrrha's new status to convince Jaune to help him in his war against Salem. This backfires when Nihilus catches wind of his plan and uses it to turn Jaune against him.
- Merger of Souls: This is ultimately what happens every time he reincarnates, as the soul of his previous incarnation merges together with the soul of his current incarnation.
- Must Have Caffeine: He's constantly seen drinking coffee and Nora even asks Jaune at one point to use the Jedi mind trick to make Ozpin share his "coffee stash" with the rest of the students.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Normally, Ozpin comes across as being both calm and collected. He's nervous and uncertain while preparing to transfer Amber's Aura into Pyrrha's body in "Death". As he watches Pyrrha scream in pain from the process, he recoils in fear and regret and starts stammering out an apology.
- Properly Paranoid: He treated Amber over-protectively and refused to let her go Walking the Earth because he was worried about Salem's forces attacking her. Sure enough, the moment Amber left Beacon, she got ambushed on the road by Cinder and had half her powers taken.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He's very understanding and patient with the people under him. When Jaune insisted that he knew nothing about the terentatek, Ozpin backed off on his questions. When Ironwood suggested bringing Jaune in for questioning after seeing footage of him using what appeared to be magic, Ozpin warned the general against antagonizing Jaune.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: He believes that Nihilus can only be defeated by someone who possesses the same powers as Nihilus. This is correct as the only sure way to defeat a wound in the Force like him is with another "wound" like Meetra Surik. However, Ozpin believes that Nihilus is similar to the Maidens and wants to make Pyrrha the Fall Maiden for this reason.
- Secret War: Is fighting one against Salem.
- Seen It All: He's seen a lot of impossible things over the course of his many lives. Consequently, he has no trouble believing Jaune's claim that he's possessed by the spirit of a magic Grimm warlord. He even admits that while he's never heard of Nihilus before nor the idea of a man transforming into a Grimm, he wouldn't be surprised to learn that such things existed.
- Spared by the Adaptation: This version survives the Fall of Beacon.
- Super-Empowering: Is able to give portions of his magic to others. It's how he created the Maidens.
- The World Is Not Ready: Kept the existence of magic and beings like the Maidens and Salem a secret because he believed that the people of Remnant weren't ready to know the truth. He's proven right in "Chaos", when Cinder's live broadcast of Darth Nihilus immediately causes a worldwide panic that draws the Grimm to Vale and sees Beacon completely overrun.
Qrow Branwen
Qrow Branwen
Species: Human (Remnantian)
Debut: Gnawing
"Sure, sending an attack dog to the finals is a real good look."
A Huntsman who acts as a spy for Ozpin's group. He's also Ruby and Yang's uncle. Ozpin brings him in to investigate Jaune's background after seeing Jaune use his Force powers during the Breach.
- BFS: His sword Harbinger.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: Qrow is absolutely humiliated in his fight with Darth Nihilus and spends most of the battle getting smacked around by him. That being said, he does a lot better than most of Nihilus' previous opponents and even trips him up a few times with his Semblance.
- Deadpan Snarker: Qrow is a very sarcastic individual who regularly snarks at everyone around him. Even as he lays dying in a pool of his own blood, the first thing he says upon seeing Ironwood is to bemoan about how Ironwood's face is going to be the last thing he sees before he dies.
- Death by Adaptation: He dies during the Battle of Beacon after using his body to shield a waitress from Ironwood's crashing airship and ends up being impaled by a large piece of the airship's shrapnel.
- Death by Irony: Qrow's Semblance causes bad luck to everyone but himself, leading him to work alone so that he won't endanger his loved ones. After being impaled by the wreckage of Ironwood's airship, he receives the type of injury that requires a lot of luck to recover from. His own Semblance guarantees that any doctor would have extremely bad luck while treating him and causes the emergency team to arrive mere seconds after he passes on. While his Semblance didn't kill him directly, it gave bad luck to everyone that could have saved him, leading to his death.
- A Death in the Limelight: He gets some focus in the chapter "Nihilus", especially in the penultimate segment of the chapter, which is told entirely from his POV. He dies when we revisit him two chapters later.
- Headbutting Heroes: With Ironwood.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: At the end of "Nihilus", he's apparently killed off when his Semblance causes a nearby civilian to trip while trying to flee, forcing Qrow to use his body to shield her from Ironwood's incoming airship.
- The Jinx: His Semblance causes bad luck to everyone around him except for himself.
- Last Request: As he's dying, he asks Ironwood to give Harbinger to Ruby, as Nihilus destroyed Crescent Rose.
- Mix-and-Match Weapon: His weapon Harbinger shifts from a sword to a scythe.
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: Qrow dies without ever saying goodbye to Ruby or Yang.
- The Nicknamer: He dubs Jaune as "nega-Ozpin" and calls Ironwood "Jimmy".
- Power Incontinence: Like in canon, he can't control his Semblance which causes bad luck to those around him. In the chapter "Nihilus", this ultimately bites him in the ass when his Semblance causes a civilian to have a Dramatic Slip while fleeing a crashing airship, forcing him to use his own body to shield her from the blast.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Qrow dies attempting to protect a waitress from the crash of Ironwood's airship, but ultimately all that happens is that both of them die. The only positive is that Qrow lived long enough to give Ironwood his weapon for Ruby to use.
- Shared Family Quirks: Like his niece, Yang, Qrow sometimes acts on impulse and runs into a situation half-cocked. This ends up getting him killed when he tries to take on Darth Nihilus.
- Sinister Scythe: His sword Harbinger can mecha-shift into a giant scythe.
- Spiky Hair: He's described as having "spiky black hair" in the narration three times.
- Technicolor Eyes: His eyes are naturally colored red.
- Tuck and Cover: At the end of "Nihilus", he wraps his body around a civilian to shield her from an exploding airship.
- Uncertain Doom: He's last seen using his body to shield a civilian before Ironwood's airship crashes nearby and he's enveloped by the explosion. It's later shown that he survived, but the wounds he gained are fatal causing his death.
- Winds of Destiny, Change!: His Semblance Misfortune causes bad luck to everyone around him.
James Ironwood
General James Ironwood
Species: Human (Remnantian)
Debut: Dance (cameo), Aftermath (appearance)
"One does not become a soldier or warrior of worth over the period of a single week. We should not ignore this. This Jaune character sounds far too suspicious. If there's the slightest chance that he's connected to Salem, we should bring him in for questioning."
The headmaster of Atlas Academy and the head of the Atlesian Military.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: He comes across as more of a Reasonable Authority Figure here and a lot of his negative traits from canon are toned down. He's still paranoid, but not unreasonably so, and he is more open to the suggestions of others. He also doesn't go through the Sanity Slippage that turned his canon counterpart into a paranoid dictator since Nihilus kills him during the Fall of Beacon.
- Boxing Battler: He's highly trained in boxing, which he makes use of during his brawl with Nihilus in "Sorry".
- A Day in the Limelight: He's one of the main POV characters for the chapter "Death", where he coordinates his army to defend Vale and personally leads the squads sent to secure Beacon.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: Instead of being killed when Atlas crashes down on Mantle, Ironwood has his life drained by Darth Nihilus during the Battle of Beacon.
- Entertainingly Wrong: He comes to the conclusion that Darth Nihilus works for Salem after noticing the similarities that Nihilus's mask has with a Grimm mask.
- Frontline General: During the Fall of Beacon, he personally leads his troops in their mission to retake Beacon and find Ozpin.
- Headbutting Heroes: Like canon, he doesn't get along with Qrow.
- In-Series Nickname: Qrow informally addresses him by the nickname "Jimmy".
- Inspector Javert: Discussed. Ozpin and Glynda believe that if they told Ironwood about Jaune's powers, he would go in guns blazing and arrest Jaune on inaccurate suspicions of being a spy.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Initially, Ozpin and Glynda decide to keep him in the dark about Jaune's powers because they're worried that Ironwood's hotheadedness and tendency to use force to solve all his problems would end up unnecessarily antagonizing Jaune. After Glynda learns about Jaune's possession, she decides to bring Ironwood into the loop about him.
- Properly Paranoid: He's suspicious of how Jaune was able to become a skilled warrior seemingly overnight and wants to safely detain him until he can figure out whether he's a threat or not. His concerns are validated after Nihilus takes control of Jaune's body, though it's highly unlikely that confining Jaune to a cell would have even worked, given how powerful Nihilus is.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: He's right to be wary of Jaune; as by the time Ironwood is introduced to the story, Jaune has fallen to the Dark Side and has become an unstable sociopath. His theory that Jaune is connected to Salem, however, is incorrect.
Amber
Amber
Species: Human (Remnantian)
Debut: Destiny (comatose), Death
The previous Fall Maiden who had half of her powers stolen by Cinder, leaving her in a comatose state.- 11th-Hour Ranger: Played with. Amber undergoes a Split-Personality Merge with Pyrrha prior to the heroes preparing to go after Nihilus. While her body is killed, her spirit survives inside Pyrrha's head.
- Adaptation Expansion: The fic explores more of her backstory. It's mentioned how she trained at Beacon, received the Fall Maiden's powers, and became a professional Huntress before being attacked by Cinder.
- Adaptational Explanation: The reason why Ozpin would allow an "inexperienced" Maiden like Amber to travel alone through Vale on horseback when he knew that Salem was hunting the Maidens is not explained in canon. Here, it's revealed that Ozpin did try to protect Amber and keep her safe. However, Amber became resentful at Ozpin's perceived overprotectiveness and eventually got into a heated argument with him that ended with her just storming off to Walk the Earth while ignoring anything else he had to say.
- Adaptational Badass: In canon, Amber was an "inexperienced" Maiden who had yet to fully learn her powers. This version was trained as a professional Huntress and has already achieved total mastery over her Maiden powers.
- Ambiguously Brown: She's described as having dark skin.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Amber had spent most of her time as the Fall Maiden wanting to travel across the world and use her powers to help those in need. After her last argument with Ozpin, she finally got her wish, only to be attacked, have her powers stolen, and put into a coma by Salem's followers.
- Broken Bird: Implied. While looking through her memories, Pyrrha sees "years of camaraderie with a different team, different loves, broken hearts, and intimate first times." Come present day, Amber is working alone with no information on what became of her old team at Beacon. While discussing with Pyrrha the possibility that she may have to kill the man she loves to defeat Nihilus, Amber talks with a bitter undertone, implying that she herself has gone through a similar experience.
- Deep Sleep: She's trapped in a coma as a result of having half her powers stolen.
- For Want Of A Nail: Here, Cinder commits suicide before fully gaining all of the Fall Maiden's power, and as a result, this resulted in Pyrrha gaining said power.
- Good is Not Nice: While Amber is ultimately a kindhearted individual, her training as a Huntress allows her to become cold and ruthless when it's necessary.
- Killed Off for Real: Her spirit dies for real and moves on to the afterlife after her host Pyrrha is killed by Nihilus in "Sorry".
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. She shares the same first name with one of Jaune's sisters but is established to be a completely separate character.
- Only One Name: Her last name is never mentioned and she's only ever referred to as Amber or Autumn.
- The Resenter: After receiving the Fall Maiden's powers, Amber wanted to use her powers to help people all over the world. Ozpin wanted to keep her safe from Salem and refused to let her act on her own. As time went on, she grew to resent Ozpin for holding her back from doing what she thought was right. This came to a boiling point when she got into an extremely heated argument with Ozpin over the best way to use her powers. The argument ended with her storming off and leaving Beacon to Walk the Earth like she always wanted.
- Sharing a Body: With Pyrrha after their souls are merged together by Ozpin. Both have full access to each other's thoughts and share control, though Pyrrha is the more dominant of the two. They decide to put aside their differences and work together after Amber learns about Nihilus from Pyrrha's memories and agrees that he needs to be put down.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: While speaking to Ozpin from inside Pyrrha's body, she is evidently still bitter about their last argument and only agrees to work with Ozpin because of the threat that Nihilus poses to all of Remnant.
- Walking the Earth: She wanted to wander to world and help people in need and was angry that Ozpin wouldn't let her.
Winter Schnee
Specialist/Brigadier General/General Winter Schnee
Species: Human (Remnantian)
Debut: Gnawing
General Ironwood's Number Two for all Huntsmen-related operations and a graduate of Atlas Academy.- Big Sister Instinct: She's extremely protective of her younger sister Weiss. Upon learning of how Jaune accidentally brainwashed Weiss into being his date for the Beacon Dance, Winter chooses to stay in Vale longer than she planned to watch over her little sister and make sure that Jaune doesn't do anything similar to her again. When she discovers that Adam cut out Weiss's eyes, she vows to kill him herself.
- A Day in the Limelight: Gets a lot of focus in "Vengeance", which shows her POV as she tries to find Weiss in the chaos of the Battle of Beacon.
- Dual Wielding: She wields a saber and a parrying dagger in battle.
- Headbutting Heroes: With Qrow.
- I'll Kill You!: She vows to kill Adam after discovering that he cut out her sister's eyes.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: During her fight with Adam in "Vengeance", she catches sight of Nihilus approaching from a distance. Knowing she's no match for him, Winter immediately disengages her duel with Adam and flees.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Unlike Ironwood, she doesn't know about the existence of magic nor Ozpin's Secret War with Salem.
- Rank Up: In "Sorry", Ironwood promotes her to Brigadier General as part of a Field Promotion to ensure that someone will be available to replace him should he be killed by Nihilus.
- Summon Magic: She can summon a flock of small Nevermores and a Beowolf.
- They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Played with and justified. Being a military officer, she addresses Ironwood by his rank as general and angrily corrects Qrow when he informally addresses Ironwood by the nickname "Jimmy".
- You Are in Command Now: By the end of the fic, Winter takes the reins of the Atlas Military after her superior General Ironwood is killed in battle by Nihilus.
Penny Polendina
Penny Polendina
Species: Android
Debut: Destiny (cameo), Death (appearance)
An Atlesian android posing as a teenage girl. She is one of the finalists for the Vytal Festival Tournament.- 11th-Hour Ranger: She's uninvolved for most of the main plot and her first major appearance happens during the Battle of Beacon, at which point she joins the main heroes and is amongst those selected by Ozpin to fight Nihilus.
- Adaptational Late Appearance: In canon, she makes her first appearance near the end of Volume 1. Here, she doesn't appear until the Vytal Festival tournament's final rounds, which are set during Volume 3.
- The Cameo: She makes a non-speaking appearance in "Destiny" where she is standing amongst the eight finalists of the Vytal Festival tournament.
- Chekhov's Gunman: She makes a brief cameo appearance during the Vytal Tournament where she's mentioned as one of the finalists. She later joins the Atlas military in holding off the Grimm and is among those selected by Ozpin to fight Darth Nihilus.
- Demoted to Extra: In the show, she was a recurring character and formed a close friendship with Ruby. Here, she's uninvolved in the story prior to the Fall of Beacon.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: She avoids her canonical death in Volume 3 since Darth Nihilus's attack happens right before her scheduled match with Pyrrha, forcing the match to be canceled as Beacon is evacuated. Instead, Nihilus kills her by crushing her body into a ball of scrap, similar to how he destroyed Crescent Rose earlier.
- Feed It with Fire: Upon discovering her robotic nature, Darth Nihilus tries to destroy Penny by blasting her with Force Lightning. Rather than overload her circuits, the electrical surge charges up her body and quadruples her power reserves.
- Master of the Levitating Blades: She uses flying swords in battle.
- Robot Girl: She's a military android disguised as a normal teenage girl.
- Super-Strength: Her robotic strength enables her to clear out large piles of scrap metal and stone that would have otherwise taken a bulldozer to move.
- Tears from a Stone: She sheds a few tears during Qrow's death despite being an android.
- Wave-Motion Gun: She can combine her floating blades together to fire a massive Sword Beam made of Dust energy. "Sorry" shows that when sufficiently powered, her laser has the same explosive yield as a turbolaser.
