Salem | The Unraveling of Hope

Salem is an ancient, mysterious figure from Remnant's forgotten past and the primary antagonist of RWBY.

She is one of the few who possesses the power of Magic, and the master of the Grimm. She is highly knowledgeable, cunning, and the leader of a cabal which operates out of Evernight Castle in the Land of Darkness. Her goals are to find the Maidens and use their powers to obtain the Relics from the Huntsman Academies.

She was a part of the original Humanity, before being cursed with immortality and falling into a Grimm Pool. She was married to Ozma and had four daughters with him before their ideologies tore them apart, resulting in their children's deaths and making them mortal enemies.

In "War", it is revealed that the reason she intends on dividing Humanity is so that when the Relics are brought together, The Gods will destroy Remnant and in turn, break the curse on her, allowing her to die.

She is the protagonist of The Girl in the Tower, a fairy tale which details her early life.

In "Ruby Rose", the first episode of the series, Salem serves as the narrator, giving the opening voice-over for the series, but credited only as "Mysterious Narrator" in "Black and White" and "Breach" until her first on-screen appearance in the Volume 3 finale, "End of the Beginning". She is also the narrator of the first four RWBY: World of Remnant episodes.

Salem's skin is currently a deathly pallor, with jet black sclerae in her eyes and glowing crimson irises that shine brighter when she is agitated. While she initially retained her half-bun hairstyle for her now bleached, pale white hair, she has since re-styled it into a larger bun with six offshoots wrapped together that also suspends several obsidian-colored ornaments. Over the passage of time, she has since grown dark purple veins that line her face and arms, and now has a black diamond-shaped marking in the center of her forehead.

She wears a very long, short-sleeved, form-fitted black dress that obscures her feet and partially drags across the ground, with its distinctive feature being a curved high collar with dark red trim bordering the outer edge of a narrow window exposing her bust in a vertical ellipsis resembling an eye, and completed with a long shawl emblazoned with three interconnected, maroon-colored vertical elliptic sigils resembling a trio of overseeing eyes above a series of maroon-colored diamond emblems. She also wears a ring resembling a Beetle on her right hand, which now have longer fingernails with jet-black nail polish.

Salem is insidious, patiently moving to undermine and destroy her enemies with cold, deliberate resolve. She is also highly intelligent, with a healthy respect for her enemy, mankind, who she recognizes as possessing both resourcefulness and ingenuity, acknowledging Humanity's capacity to draw strength from hope. She is humble enough to recognize that there are limits to her abilities and that she can only do so much for her subordinates.

She is very confident and self-assured, secure in her knowledge that she can best whatever Ozpin sends to stop her and her goals. She also appears to be cruel or sadistic, seeming to relish the prospect of watching Ozpin fail. During her attack on Atlas, she shows cruel delight that she can force him to watch as she destroys the Kingdom.

In contrast, Salem is also fair and collegial towards her allies, giving credit where credit is due and showing genuine appreciation to those who are loyal. In enforcing this atmosphere of fairness, she also discourages unnecessary malignancy and cruelty among her associates. She is also seen tolerating her allies' unruly behavior to some extent, such as Tyrian Callows' maniacal tendencies and Arthur Watts' snide and condescending attitude. In "So That's How It Is", Salem shows her fairness when she only blames Cinder Fall, who was in charge of the mission, for their failure in acquiring the Relic of Knowledge during the Battle of Haven. She forbids Hazel Rainart from taking the blame, even threatening him when he continues to do so.

Salem knows how to manipulate people and has different methods to do so, such as boosting Watts' ego, giving promises of power to Cinder and making use of Leonardo Lionheart's fear. She is one who would make use of anybody to help further her goals, something Salem herself suggests when explaining her decisions to Cinder, but would later discard the people she uses if they become obsolete to her, which is later violently demonstrated when she uses a Seer to kill Lionheart for trying to run from the Battle of Haven.

However, Salem is not above losing her temper, as she is particularly demanding when inquiring whether Cinder has truly killed Ozpin or not. This display of sheer dominance shows Salem's rather imperious and demanding personality. Her biggest displays of anger are shown in "So That's How it Is", when she first binds Hazel to the floor after he tries to cover for Cinder, and then when she destroys all the windows in her council chamber upon learning that Ozpin has already reincarnated and has acquired the Relic.

Likewise, when Oscar Pine attempted to mimic Ozma's mannerisms, Salem did not hesitate to furiously grab his face to make it clear that she can see through his efforts.

Due to the countless millennia of walking Remnant, Salem is suicidal in nature. She wishes nothing more than to be rid of her immortality and has gone to great lengths to do. Even jumping into the Pools of Grimm could not kill her and instead only gave her the power to control the Grimm. It has also given her a low opinion of Remnant, deeming it a "ruined world." In the present, her goal is to divide Humanity and acquire the Relics so that when The Gods destroy Remnant, the curse on her will finally be broken, allowing her to die.

Salem is a powerful individual capable of both wielding Magic and controlling the Grimm. Though normally preferring to work in the shadows, when out in the open few can oppose her, such as when she destroyed both the Kingdoms of Atlas and Vale. Because of this, she is undoubtedly the greatest threat to walk Remnant.

Due to her immortality, Salem does not bother to defend herself from attacks, focusing purely on the offensive. She also has a incredibly high resistance to pain, able to keep going even when dealt lethal blows.

Salem has lived for thousands of years, during which she acquired extensive knowledge of the nature of Aura and Dust, as well as an understanding of Human nature, society, and history