This interpretation of Cinder's backstory might be keeping you up at night for a while. At the very least, it will be a disturbing tale. Cinder's home life was not a happy one. In fact, you might start to get a sense of why Cinder is the way she is with the horrors she endured before the series.
- Brigit Stark truly is a disturbing parent. One of the most disturbing things about her is how mundane she is. In a world as fantastic as RWBY with Grimm beasts and megalomaniacs, she is nothing more than a greedy, opportunistic sociopath who exploits everyone around her without remorse while staying beneath suspicion. There are plenty of "Brigit Starks" out there in real life. (Thankfully, there aren't too many of them, but they still exist.) It says a lot about her when you can have Salem and Tyrian in the same story and she still comes out to be the most disturbing of the villains.
- For starters, when six-year-old Cinder catches her complaining about having another kid and planning to drive her father to suicide, she outright chokes her and threatens to make her life a living Hell if she says anything. Even creepier is the way she fakes a motherly tone while threatening Cinder after tucking her in for bed.
- Then, she makes her husband hang himself just to get his money. All she says when she sees his body is “Good riddance.”
- And in that same scene, she starts manipulating Sterling and Clementine into hating her just to justify her abuse of Cinder. She coldly glares at Cinder after putting on the performance of a lifetime to let her know her life is about to become a lot worse...
- There's also Cinder’s realization that the Crocodile Tears weren't for her, but for her siblings. She makes Cinder play right into her hands.
- She starts starving Cinder and beating her with belts while screaming at her for minor slights. We see this in action near the end of chapter one when Brigit beats her for trying to get a glass of water without permission and raising her voice at Brigit in justifiable anger.
- Cinder’s retaliation can only be described as a Cruel and Unusual Death. While Bright is an Asshole Victim, imagine it from her perspective. She is first knocked out by Cinder but then wakes up handcuffed to the stairs. Then, Cinder throws a fire Dust crystal to burn the mansion with her inside. And finally, Cinder leaves the key just outside of her reach, giving her a hopeless chance of escape. And it’s the first time Brigit feels true fear when she knows she doesn’t have control over a situation. No matter how deserving she is of this fate, it still horrific.
- What is also notable is how calmly Cinder dismisses it. She is already becoming the ruthless villain she is on the show.
- Before this happens, Cinder stabs her sister in the throat. Her Dissonant Serenity and justification for it, as well as her dismissal of it, really show the first signs of the sociopath that she’ll become.
- Cinder being abducted by bandits. She was attacked in the woods and for all she knew, she was about to become some man’s Sex Slave.
- Cinder killing Grayson so ruthlessly even after she gave her a place to stay and food to eat. She's already so willing to turn her back on people in the most gruesome ways possible.
- After that, she calmly walks out in the middle of an Ursa attack. The attack itself describes all of the carnage that they commit, leaving dead bodies and destruction everywhere. And Salem is the only reason Cinder wasn't a part of itnote .
