Okay, I’m breathing, I’m breathing. I’m good. Now to mend what I’ve said during this past couple of weeks. ‘ ^’

I know when to admit when I’m wrong, and while I’m super proud of all of the support my analysis had received, I’m afraid to say that I was only partially right with Emerald’s semblance, and with my opinion regarding the Neo versus Emerald debate.

Emerald’s semblance isn’t becoming a doppelganger. But her semblance does pertain to illusion-making. Some very, very personal illusion-making.

From here on out, this is going to be PURE RWBY3 SPOILERS. Screenshots, links, you name it, it’s going to be in here. So please don’t look under the cut unless you have seen S3 Ep4 “Lessons Learned” and S3 Ep6 “Fall” of RWBY Vol 3.

Okay so. Where to begin. Let’s pick up post-fight of Yang versus Mercury, which might be a good place to start. It was obvious that two different things were going on at the exact same time.

In the point of view of the arena, we see Yang angrily break Mercury’s leg/knee because he’s a loser.



In Yang’s PoV, we see Mercury launching himself at Yang, causing her to defend herself.

Now, let’s try and dissect this bit by bit, and in doing so, we’re going to see exactly how malicious and well set-up this is.

The first thing I want to note is that Emerald is nowhere to be seen. The chair next to Cinder is vacant, yet somehow she’s the first one to console Mercury when his knee gets shattered. There’s a very good reason for this.

If we take apart this event by the layer, we start to see some of this unravel. It’s here that I would like to present this new idea: Emerald’s semblance isn’t doppelganging, but rather, that she can mess with people’s vision. Yes, that she’s not a thief of faces, but rather that she’s a stone cold illusionary Medusa that can craft mirages. With this in mind, a lot of things start to click in place.

This was the last glimpse of Yang we saw before we heard a “shwoom” of a semblance being activated. She’s in full view, and the most prominent and important thing is that her eyes are uncovered and unaltered. It’s right at this that we get “Mercury attacking her”.

Since the arena was set down/recalled when this was happening, and as seen in Ep 5 when Ruby and Blake rejoin Weiss and Yang when the fight was officially over, it can be debated that Emerald was already at the arena waiting to greet Mercury. Or at least, that’s what it was on the outside. In actuality, it was all according to keikaku plan.



“But Haruka, Mercury was a whole ways away from Yang when this happened! How was this all a fabricated illusion if he was nowhere near Yang to begin with!”. I’ll admit, this really got me too, and it had me doubting that it was even Emerald to begin with until I noticed something.

Looking back to the big screen, we see what was the initial end to Yang vs Merc.

But then it jumps to Mercury standing up. Like, the display jumps, not the episode, not the model. The display cuts from when he’s sitting to when he’s standing, implying that he did walk over to her and that he got close to Yang so that she could bust him in his knee.

So then, what the hell was happening in this screenshot here?

This is, to Yang’s knowledge, the view behind her. We were seeing what Yang thought she saw. To back this up, we’d have to listen to the episode once more. Mercury’s line of “There’s not going to BE a next time, Blondie” was breathy, airy. It was close to Yang, which vastly contradicts the scene we’re being shown. This isn’t an illusion; this is just what Yang thought was behind her, and as soon as she heard those words (especially after hearing them so close), she turns around, and all of a sudden a semblance activates and everything plays out. \ o /

“But Haruka, this is all speculation again! What makes you so sure this time?”

Because this time

We have evidence

That backs up the claim that in order for her semblance to work, Emerald needs purely unfiltered vision for her victims.

“Okay, but how is that different from Neo?” And this is where I’m going to be honest and blunt with you; we just don’t know yet. This is going off of a MULTITUDE of small details that click if you only see it in certain lens. We don’t know much about Neo nor Eme, but we do have details, and we do have facts. All of what I’ve presented to you today points to Emerald having a mirage semblance versus Neo’s illusion semblance. Neo’s illusions affect a group, but Emerald effects one singular person at a time (as far as we’ve seen). Neo’s illusions wouldn’t have been able to do what we saw in Ep 6; This mirage semblance not only messes with a person hardcore (see: Coco) and fits with every aspect of Emerald we’ve seen so far, but it makes it miraculously easy to frame someone like this in which an entire stadium can doubt that one singular person.

To put it simply, the difference is this:

Neo’s semblance makes you doubt your surroundings. Emerald’s semblance makes you doubt yourself.