#not comingback yet maybe

[mrgrnch]

[littlemisssquiggles]

Hm... I recently asked about Summer, so why not... There is lots of theories circling that Summer Rose might actually be alive. If they turned out to be true, this would take away a huge aspect of Ruby's character in my opinion. How do you think about those theories?

Hiya Mizu. To be honest, I’m not really for those theories myself. Everything we know about Summer Rose thus far has pointed to her being dead. While the word going around through the grapevine that Summer being dead was something only fully confirmed by V3, the idea of Summer and Ruby visiting her by her gravesite was established as early as the very first Red Trailer back before the series first began. 

From the get-go, Summer has been a direct influence on Ruby’s life and story without necessarily being a living character.

Let’s not forget the fact that Ruby Rose isn’t the only person whosestory was influenced by Summer’s untimely dead. Summer’s passing helpedspearhead Yang into learning the truth that Summer was not her actual motherleading to the reveal of Raven and thus sparking Yang’s intrigue to go look forher. Apart from that, Summer’s death also affected Tai Yang who apparently fellinto a bit of a depressive state over losing Summer which led to Yang basicallybecoming like a parental figure to Ruby to pick up some of the slack for Tai.

Not to mention that Summer also affects Qrow’s story. Till this day, westill don’t know what really happened when Summer died. All we know is that,according to Yang, she left for a mission and never came back. Yet later in V4, Qrow kept mumbling about telling Tai that Summer is not comingback. Well at the time, most of us theorists, like myself believed that Qrowwas probably referring to Summer. But now that I think about it, Qrow’s murmursabout Tai could also simultaneously allude to Raven’s departure with Qrow beingforced to tell his former brother-in-law and brother-in-arms that his sister hadabandoned her family forever.

But then I figured that Qrow having a delusional nightmare over tellingTai about Raven isn’t too impactful. To me, it would make more sense if Qrowwas talking about Summer meaning that the memory he was recalling during his delirium was possibly the day when he had to tell Tai, probably for a second time that, another love of his life was never coming back. And what was more painfulespecially for Qrow than Raven’s departure is that Summer was dead as opposed to just abandoning everyone behind like Raven did.

I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that, I personally don’twant for the Writers’ to retcon and have Summer be revealed to be alive. Theonly thing a reveal like that would add to the story is more shock value which,to me, honestly isn’t needed.

What I mostly want and need from Summer’s side of things is to learnmore about the type of person she is. I wish the story would take the time toshow more flashbacks of Ruby’s time with her mother. Every flashback of Ruby’schildhood showed her bonding with either her sister or her father or UncleQrow. Very little memory of Summer Rose which makes me wonder exactly how old was Ruby when Summer passed.

Recalling Yang’s flashback story from V2 when she told Blake about thetime she took Ruby to try and find Raven, Yang said Ruby was a toddler at thetime which placed her between the age of 12 to 36 months (that’s 1 to possiblythree or four years). So this would mean that Ruby must’ve been roughly 2-3years old when Summer passed.

This could potentially mean that Ruby barely has much memories of her mother. That coupled together with the fact that Summer was a huntress who would often leave her family to go on missions outside the kingdom—it makes me wonder how much time did Ruby spent with Summer and even still, how much of it does she actually remember from her childhood.

Unlike Yang, Tai and Qrow who probably had years of cherished times andstories with Summer, Ruby doesn’t seem to have much of it and the ones sheactually do remember she probably has to cling desperately to so that shewouldn’t forget her.

It make me wonder if part of Ruby’s possibly melancholy over Summer isthat, she doesn’t remember her as much as Yang or Tai or Qrow and she’s worried that one day, she’ll wake up and forget her all together or…something like that.

What I find interesting about Ruby is that, despite sharing what seemsto be the shortest time with Summer, she’s the only who I guess still keepsSummer’s memory alive in a way since we only know about Summer mostly through Ruby and how much she’s impacted Ruby’s life.

I know we have Yang who talked about Summer once before in V2 but thatwas only that one time. Qrow seems to share the closest ties to Summer yetthrough him we’ve learned diddly-squat new about Summer Rose. And quite franklyat this point, I’ve grown weary about Summer Rose being a mystery. It would benice if the story revealed more about her past, who she is and more importantly,it’d be nice to hear Ruby talk more about her mother and share her experiencewith Summer Rose.

This is why I like my Pinehead headcanon about Oscar beingraised entirely by his father (and by extension aunt and possible uncle) formost of his life while knowing very little about his real mother other thanwhat little stories his father used to tell him about her when he actuallychose to answer his son’s inquiries. Perhaps that’s something Oscar and Rubycould’ve bonded over. Being raised by families that barely spoke of theirmothers yet the two still clung to a desire to learn more about the women whobrought them into the world. That could be a neat concept to push these twokids’ friendship but…y’know that’s just my idea.

Do you actually know what would be cool but would probably never happen?What if…while in Atlas or Mantle, Ruby reunites with her long-lost grandparents a.k.a Summer Rose’s family?

Like imagine if Summer Rose was kind of like Hermione Granger in a way. Not in the sense that she was a book worm but more in line with her being the child of parents who weren’t magical beings like her.

Imagine if…Summer Rose was a Silver Eyed Warrior born to parents who weren’t Silver Eyes. So unlike Maria Calavera who at least had her fatherto train her, Summer had to learn how to use her powers on her own which leadto her meeting Ozpin.

Imagine if…Summer Rose was actually a foster child to Ozpin or one of his many associates and while attending Beacon Academy, Ozpin took on the role of surrogate father to Summer and practically raised her in place of her biological parents who knew nothing about the truth of what their daughter was but entrusted Ozpin to her since he promised them he could provide the answers Summer was looking for.

Imagine if…Summer Rose’s parents trusted their daughter into Ozpin’s custody and Oz used to send letters to Summer’s family informing them of Summer’s development.

 Or…what if…Summer was the one who kept in close contact with her parents, yet she kept their identity a secret for their own safety. Imagine if…Summer was actually forced to leave her parents behind and never saw them again since, according to Ozpin, being connected to a Silver Eyes would’ve potentially placed them in danger and out of fear of having her parents hunted and killed—Summer was forced to estrange herself from them. Despite this, she still kept in contact with them, sending them letters over the years to let them know of how she was going.

Imagine if…Summer never returned to her family but she still maintainedclose communication with them til the day she died. That’s when all correspondence stopped. Imagine if…Summer kept the identity of her parents a secret she held to her grave; even from Qrow, Tai and their family.

Could you imagine how intriguing that would’ve been to learn that Summerhad family that Ruby could meet?

Imagine…a scenario where Summer remains deceased as the story has alwaysportrayed her but Ruby learns about the type of person Summer was through the people who knew her best and were actually willing to talk more about Summer to Ruby.

Also imagine how big of a twist it would be to learn that Summer hadkept her own little secret—about her parents from even her friends and Tai.Not even Yang knew about them. This could provide Ruby with another side of her family that she’s personally connected to through Summer.

Cause let’s face it, while Qrow is Ruby’s uncle (and possible godfathercause I’m still holding to my small hunch that Summer made Qrow Ruby’sgodfather before she passed and that’s why he keeps such a close eye on herapart from being the daughter of possibly the closest person in Qrow’s life),he is technically only related to Yang by blood.

Qrow is only connected to Ruby by extension of Tai since she is hisother daughter he had with Summer. But outside of that, Ruby has no family ofSummer’s to connect herself to. What if she did? Imagine if Summer Rose had long lost parents or even a sister who raised her until the two were forced to part ways due to Summer being a Silver Eyes and Oz taking Summer away or something like that.

In a nutshell, I’m more in favour of Ruby finding long lost relatives of Summer Rose (who aren’t Silver Eyes or…maybe they are, who knows) and learning more about her mother through them than actually finding Summer alive.

Oh! What could even be more fascinating is if Summer Rose actually came from a hidden secret society of Silver Eyed Warriors who took a similar approach to Maria Calavera.

Upon learning of the genocide of so many Silver Eyes over the years,this society gathered all the remaining Silver Eyes in the world as a means of protecting them. However this society went into hiding andavoided contact with the outside world.

According to Qrow who learnt from Ozpin, Silver Eyes were known to befeared by the Grimm and lived the life of warriors. But unfortunately this society sort of abolished that rule. Instead of being trained to use their powers to protect humanity from the Grimm, they were raised in fear of death—the complete opposite of what Silver Eyes are known to be.

Let’s say…Summer was once a part of that secret society with her family. However Summer was a wayward soul. Unlike her brothers and sisters, she saw the greatest in her powers and wanted to use it to help others in the outside world. She wanted to become a huntress.

Let’s say…Summer ran away from the society or rather, she was banished from the society for wanting to pursue the huntsmen lifestyle. Andafter that, the society no longer offered Summer their protection andassistance. She was cast out into the world unknown. She wasn’t even allowed to see or keep in contact with her family who all shunned her for her decision.

Imagine if…Summer gave up the closed off yet protected lifestyleshe once knew for chance to become a hero because that’s was the type of person she was. That was the type of person Silver Eyed Warriors were supposed to be.

Let’s say…that despite being disowned by her family and fellow Silver Eyes, Summer had a younger sister or perhaps a baby brother who she was forced to leave behind in the society after being cast out. 

But in spite of this, Summer’s…let’s say little brother, managed to secretly keep in contact with her over the years without his family or the other society members knowing.

Summer’s brother learnt all about his sister’s adventures in the outsideworld and all the good work she did as a huntress through letters the two exchanged. Unfortunately, eventually the letters stopped coming after Summer died and her family never knew the truth of what happened.

Imagine something like that where Ruby discovers that she isn’t alone.That’s she’s not the only Silver Eyed Warrior. That there is an entire societyin hiding somewhere in the cold, cold mountains of Solitas where no one canfind them. However unlike Ruby, the other Silver Eyes have all been raised tobe cowards in fear of the world and not brought up as the fierce warriors they are meant to be.

Imagine Ruby reconnecting with Summer’s family through this society andfinally gaining the answers she wanted to know about, not just Summer, but theSilver Eyes in general through this society. And…also imagine Ruby eventually becoming the last Silver Eyed Warrior when this Silver Eyes Society is discovered by Salem’s goons in Atlas and there’s a massive genocide which Ruby is blamed for.

Or…perhaps Ruby becomes a leader of some kind—training other Silver Eyes to use their powers, reintroducing the Silver Eyes into the world so that they may help defend Remnant? Or something like that? Who knows? I’d rather THAT than Summer being revealed to be alive.

I agree with you on the prospect of Summer being alive theory takingaway a huge aspect of Ruby’s character. You’re right. It doesn’t need tohappen.

I don’t need for Summer Rose to suddenly be alive because if Summer hasbeen alive this whole time and it’s shown that she straight up left her familymaking them believe she’s dead this whole time then…wouldn’t that in a way make her worse than Raven or just as bad?

Not to mention that Summer being alive would defeat the message of herstaple song with Ruby—Red Like Roses Part II. That theme described Summer’s sacrifice. How despite knowing what her death would ultimately do her daughter as the last living Silver Eyes, Summer still went ahead because according to the lyrics to the song, “…Summer didn’t have a choice. She did what she had to do. She made a sacrifice but as a result of this, forced a bigger sacrifice on Ruby”

It even goes on to voice Summer, almost pleading to Ruby to not pursuethe same path that she did—the path that ultimately led to her sacrifice anddeath—the same path that Ruby had chosen now. Again, Summer being alive would defeat all the meaning in this theme that helped paint a picture of themother-daughter dynamic between Summer and Ruby.

So yeah, that’s my $1.50 on that. To reiterate, not a fan of the Summerbeing alive theory. But I do like the alternative of Ruby possibly reconnecting with Summer’s old family and learning more about her mother through them—what could even be a nice touch is if, after meeting Ruby, Summer’s non-Silver Eye family members compile all the letters that Summer sent to them over the years and Ruby gets to hear her mother’s voice and learn about her through her letters—letters that spoke about all her adventures, her time at Beacon, her time with Team STQR, Ozpin and all the stuff  that came after, including the birthof Ruby and how happy Summer was when she gave birth to her own daughter, how much Summer loved Ruby. Heck it can even include a last letter that Summer sent to her family before her final mission. Possibly.

If not this idea then how about the Secret Silver Eyes Society concept where Ruby discovers that Summer came from a hidden colony of Silver Eyes but left to become a huntress. Imagine Ruby discovering that she isn’t alone and ultimately rising up to become a leader of this secret society, becoming the teacher to train others like herself to use their gift.

I think either one of these could be cool. But y’know, as always, theseare just my thoughts and theories. Overall, I hope this answers your questionMizu. Y’know the drill. Let me know whatcha think.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)