RWBY’s main quartet comprises a heavy hitter, a veritable mage, and one speedy lass with a big scythe, but Blake Belladonna manages to have one of the niftiest abilities of the bunch. While she might notinvoke the same power potentialas her companions, her physical skill combined with her power make her a formidable opponent, and no less flashy.
Blake is a feline-type Faunus, a half-human, half-animal species, and has witnessed prejudice against her people as well as fought back against injustice. After abandoning the resistance group that trained her after they became too violent, she finds herself wanting to become a Huntress in hopes of inspiring good in another way. Blake is characterized by uncertainty; she can see problems and holds strong convictions about equality that she isn’t afraid to speak up about, but she can’t see a clear path forward.Her past haunts her stilland her efforts to move on often feel like she is running away, something she sees an eerie similarity to in her power.
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In Shadows
Blake’s Semblance - her power - is called Shadow, and enables her to throw out duplicates of herself that can take the hit in her stead. These closes are not durable and will distort and disappear once hit with an oncoming attack, but they are visually indistinguishable from her, making them a perfect decoy.
Not only does the ability allow for diversion during stealth,the ability functions well in combat and traversalsurprisingly well. When Blake activates this ability, the clone and the original separate, and Blake can move herself in any direction of her choosing, temporarily cloaking her body. This means her opponents are none the wiser to her trick; a cunning use of misdirection.
Disregarding the benefits of the clone itself, this means Blake can use this power like a double-jump or throw herself towards an enemy at great speed. Its versatility is a testament to Blake’s combat prowess, but technology has also allowed her skills to flourish.
A Little Help From Friends
In Volume 2 of the original series, Weiss gifts Blake with specially customized Dust -a power source inRWBY- that lets her change the form of her duplicates. Dust come in many forms, often with some elemental properties, so its application here gives the clones an added punch.
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These variants resemble the element being used, meaning the duplicates loses the resemblance, but the trade-off is well worth it. One turns the clone into a fiery explosive, another into a statue of ice, another stone, and others effect what happens when the clone is destroyed. However, none of this is possible without Blake’s most intricate tool.
The Gambol Shroud
Some characters have one sword, some have two, but Blake has a combinedtotal of five, all built into one form. The large cleaver on her back is vicious enough but when it’s unsheathed, there is a wakizashi - a short sword - inside. The wakizashi and the sheath doubling as a cleaver can be dual-wielded to deal quick and decisive slashing attacks.
Additionally, the wakizashi’s blade folds in on itself, resting atop the hilt which is a high-capacity pistol with a folded barrel. In its shortened form, this weapon resembles a Japanese kusarigama and can be thrown as such. However, the fun doesn’t stop there.
As if to go even further beyond,Blake uses the blast of the pistolto jettison the gun at her opponents, before using her ribbon to control and swing this devastating blade around. The ribbon itself is long, durable, and able to stretch accordingly to accommodate the weapon it is affixed to. The pistol is also the medium by which she activates the dust to change her clones.
Blake doesn’t possess the casting abilities of Weiss, nor does her gun come anywhere close to Yang’s power. While her kusarigama recoil-assisted fighting style is akin to Ruby and her scythe, the stopping power just isn’t the same. However, in spite of all of that,few other characters have as much versatilityas Blake.
The “Black Trailer” from 2013 is a perfect display of what makes Blake such a captivating combatant on screen. What she lacks in raw strength she makes up for in technique, strategy, and thinking quickly on her feet. She could arguably be the most skilled fighter on her team.
