Weiss Schnee

"“It's just… Our kingdom isn't supposed to be like this. Fearful, and withdrawn. We should be opening our borders to help the world, not closing them down.”" —Weiss to Winter in Sparks.

Weiss Schnee is one of the protagonists of RWBY. She is a Huntress, a former student of the now-defunct Beacon Academy, and former heiress of the Schnee Dust Company.

Why She Rocks

 * 1) She has a great and attractive character design that goes perfectly with her Snow White inspiration.
 * 2) Her Semblance Glyphs, which gives her the ability to manipulate symbols and utilize them (or summon using them) is unique and great to look at.
 * 3) Not only that, but her fighting style is also very creative, as it contains a lot of flips and pirouettes, making her look like a fighting ballerina, and when she zips around using her glyphs it can also give her the appearance of a figure skater.
 * 4) Her weapon, Myrtenaster, is an awesome weapon, as it's a hybrid between a rapier, and a revolver (it has a revolver-like mechanism in the guard that allows it to switch between magic enhancements).
 * 5) There's an incredibly funny scene where she at first, acts annoyed at the thought of Zwei staying with the team, only to start gushing over his cuteness.
 * 6) Character Development: She started off as self-entitled and arrogant and felt like she deserved constant praise and recognition for her talents and status, and she's later revealed to be a racist towards Faunus and stereotyped them as degenerates and terrorists, (though partially justified due to her family's war against the White Fang), but she still comes off as incredibly toxic even when she helps look for Blake. But the rest of the series ultimately has Weiss become arguably the most compassionate and level-headed of the main characters, calling out a rich couple for mocking the tragedy that fell Vale and standing up to her greedy abusive father.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) She started off as arrogant and conceited in the first volumes. Luckily, she improves over the course of the series.
 * 2) In "The Stray", she's revealed to be a racist towards Faunus and stereotyped them as degenerates and terrorists, (though partially justified due to her family's war against the White Fang), but she still comes off as incredibly toxic even when she helps look for Blake.
 * 3) In volume 8, even though her mother told her about how Whitley feels, Weiss brushes him off, doesn't acknowledge him as a victim as she claimed she was and doesn't bother to apologize or try to make amends with him.
 * 4) She was flanderized and became out of character in RWBY Ice Queendom.

Trivia

 * Weiss is often addressed by nicknames:
 * "Princess", "Snow Angel" or "Ice Queen" by Ruby, Jaune Arc, Neptune Vasilias, Sun, Yang, even Torchwick and the White Fang Lieutenant.
 * The nickname "Ice Queen" is also given by Qrow to Winter (Weiss' older sister).
 * Weiss' surname Schnee means "snow" in German.
 * It may also be a reference to Scheelite, which is a type of tungstate mineral, which has several industrial age applications not unlike dust.
 * Weiss alludes to Snow White in many ways:
 * The literal translation of Weiss' name, from German to English, is "White Snow" (however, the actual descriptive phrase "white snow" would translate to "weißer Schnee" or "schneeweiß" in German. The German name of Snow White in the original book is "Schneewittchen").
 * The song Mirror Mirror heavily references the evil queen's use of a magic mirror, with the lyrics "Mirror, tell me who's the loneliest of all" referencing the queen's line "Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" This song first plays in the "White" Trailer, which serves as Weiss' introduction.
 * The pendant on the necklace Weiss wears with her original battle outfit is an apple, referencing the poisoned apple that Snow White takes a bite of.
 * Advertisements for Schnee Dust Company merchandise bear the slogan "The finest of them all", referencing the evil queen's phrase "who's the fairest of them all?".
 * Klein Sieben, one of the Schnee family's butlers, alludes to all the seven dwarves.
 * Weiss also alludes to another variation of Snow White in the fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red. This allusion is a connection to how she and Ruby would become close partners.