Salem existed since ancient time along with Ozpin.So she may very well know this mechanism.It's interesting how cinder and the previous fall maiden fight so differently. The previous fall maiden fought using thunder and wind meanwhile cinder focuses heavily on fire. It's likely that this is a matter of preference but you'd think that when you have maidens for every season their powers would have a more limited scope. If anything you'd think the summer maiden would be more of a fire user and in turn the fall maiden would be more of a wind user... Winder would be ice... and no idea with spring. I guess controlling plants or something to that effect?
Crackpot theory: Cinder isn't really the fall maiden. Maybe she can use fire powers because she is actually the summer maiden. Ozpin went ahead and told each maiden they were a different thing thus there would at least be some trolling in case any of the maidens got compromised. He probably didn't foresee salem being able to steal maiden powers however over a long period of time it is not impossible that there is a traitorous maiden. Such as the current "spring" maiden. Maybe this is the additional protection ozpin was speaking of. So you have a "fall" maiden that can't open the beacon vault and a "spring" maiden that can't open the haven vault.That is the sort of troll level you only acquire over multiples lives worth of trolling.
Another bit that made me think of that: How does salem know about the maidens and which maiden opens which door? This is something that of course only people in ozpin's inner circle would know about and ideally would keep secret from salem. Barring shenanigans, that was probably the original endgame. To hide the relics behind doors and leave the key unknown. However salem does know which maiden opens which door. Meaning that in the past someone from ozpin's inner circle betrayed him. And how did he compensate? By adding a bit of fun to this.--- Double Post Merged, , Original Post Date: ---




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