Maria Calavera

Maria Calavera (マリーア・カラベラ, Marīa Karabera), also known as The Grimm Reaper (グリム・リーパー, Gurimu Rīpā), is both a fictional character and tritagonist of the RWBY series. She is an elderly woman with prosthetic eyes, though she cannot see color with them. She was originally a silver-eyed Huntress before being blinded by the Faunus assassin Tock. Her weapons of choice, of which she only has one cane in her elder years, were one of her two kamas, Life and Death, that combines at the ends to form a twin-bladed weapon. Her Semblance, which she calls "Preflexes", allows her to react to attacks almost before they happen. Unlike most Hunters, due to the risk of being targeted by Salem, Maria was trained by her father instead of attending a school.

She first appeared in "Argus Limited", where she meets Team RWBY, Qrow and Oscar after they crash-land into the snow region of northern Anima. Upon learning that Ruby has silver eyes, Maria teaches her to consciously use her powers when they are attacked by the Apathy Grimm. In Argus, she becomes a mentor to Ruby and shares what she knows about the silver eyes. She is later smuggled onto a military airship by Weiss to pilot it to the rest of the group, but the pair is then attacked by Caroline's giant robot. Maria pilots the ship to provide air support for the group, and later to fly the group to Atlas.

"Life... is beautiful. It is precious. And it must... be protected."
 * —Maria Calavera, telling Ruby about the importance of life.

Appearance & Biography

 * Voice Actor: Melissa Sternenberg (English), Not Known (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Not Known (Isralian), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish)

Appearance
Maria is an elderly woman with dark skin and long silver hair, which she wears in a single braid down her back. She is of small stature and appears to be hunched over, requiring the use of a walking stick.

She wears a full-length dress in the traditional Tabasco style, consisting of a dark blue top with full sleeves and skirt comprised of alternating light and dark blue layers. In addition to her dress, she wears thick brown gloves and a heavy blue cloak trimmed at the edges with a pattern of white, hollow triangles on a light blue background. A similar white and blue trim is around the neck of the cloak. The cloak is secured to her shoulders with ornate white pauldrons.

Maria's eyes were slashed out by Tock, and she requires goggle-like prosthetic eyes to see. The prosthesis is dark gray with cyan colored lenses, each of which is equipped with a set of adjustable shutters capable of mimicking natural expressions. Four rectangular cyan lights create a partial ring on the outer bottom edge of the eyes, while a single cyan nodule on the top outer edge overlaps slightly with each lens. Two small antennae protrude vertically from the upper left side of the prosthesis. On the upper right is a port that allows for the attachment of a wireless receiver, allowing Maria to directly receive data from equipment.

Additionally, Maria carries a walking stick comprised of a natural wooden shaft terminating in a smooth, narrow section and metal foot with a purple band around its middle. Her walking stick is topped by an ornate blue skull connected by means of a thick metal band with a purple ring at its center. On the front of the connecting band is a large, blunt protrusion located directly below the skull's mouth.

During her Youth
As a young woman, Maria had shoulder-length black ash hair, silver eyes, and was taller. She wore an ornate skull mask that all but completely concealed her face, revealing only her lower jaw. She wore a laced waist-cincher over a long blue tunic with a dark gray hemline that fell over a dark teal skirt that also had the same gray hem. The tunic opens in a 'v' to reveal an off-white folded collar. The long sleeves are also cinched just above the elbows. All three cinches and the hem are the same dark gray as the hooded cloak Maria also wore. Her boots were dark brown. In addition, she wore a dark blue skull necklace.


 * Hair Color: Silver, Black (formerly)
 * Skin Color: Tan
 * Eye Color: Silver (formerly)
 * Age: Not Known
 * Birthday: Not Known
 * Height: Not Known
 * Weight: Not Known

Personality
She is rather energetic and nonchalant in spite of her advanced age, allowing the train's derailment to roll off her shoulders as if it were nothing. She greets the heroes with friendly banter but easily takes offense to those who call her "defenseless" and "old". However, she is well aware of her current limitations, berating herself for not realizing the threat of the Apathy sooner.

Maria is shown to be sound-minded when tension rises, as shown when everyone becomes discouraged after Ozpin ceases leading the group. This trait is further shown when Maria orders Team RWBY to flee without hesitation once the Apathy appear. However, she is not above being petty and callous, as shown by her interactions with Caroline Cordovin.

After her flashback in "The Grimm Reaper", Maria states her deep regret over not doing more for the world, even going so far as calling herself "a disappointment." She warns the group not to strive to become like her, a fallen hero who lost the will to fight after she lost her eyes, showing a degree of bitterness over her own fears. Despite her shortcomings, she repeatedly shows a high level of faith on the current generation. Additionally, despite her abilities and skills, she preferred to go under an alias during her Huntress days and believes deeply in the beauty of life and its protection.

Family

 * Unnamed Father (Deceased)

Powers and Abilities
Maria at her prime possessed high skill in combat, aided by her Semblance. In "The Grimm Reaper", she was able to fight multiple opponents at once, and she was capable of dual-wielding her kamas, making good use of the gravity Dust within them. Currently, she is more durable and resistant than average, able to shake off a train crash, jump down a deep well without injury, and even run at a considerable pace despite her advanced age, shown during "Alone in the Woods".

Maria is also a certified aircraft pilot, being able to fly an Atlesian Manta ship. Her piloting ability is aided and enhanced by her ability to cybernetically interface with the ship's sensor array via her prosthetic optic sensors.

Silver Eyes
Maria was born with silver eyes, which allow her to project bright white light from her eyes that is lethal to the Creatures of Grimm. She was seen with the ability to petrify a massive Nevermore in quick succession while disarmed. She has a relatively good understanding over the activation of the ability, refusing to label it as a means to destroy, but to protect, but little to no idea of its origin, until she theorized it was divine. However, after being blinded by Tock, she no longer has access to this ability. She inherited her eyes from her father, who was also a Silver Eyed Warrior himself.

Semblance
Maria's Semblance, which she nicknamed "Preflexes", allows her to sense everything better than most people and react to attacks almost before they happen.

Early Life
Maria Calavera inherited her silver eyes from her father, a former soldier who was also her teacher. Maria's father was able to find little information about the power and abilities of those with silver eyes - so little that he grew suspicious that those with silver eyes were being targeted. Maria did not attend any of the Huntsmen Academies, but she had the highest score when she took her licensing exam.

Based on her father's suspicions, Maria tried to hide her Silver Eyes by adopting a persona known as "The Grimm Reaper". This disguise included using a skeletal mask to hide her eyes.

Reaper's End
Maria crosses a rope-suspended bridge in a mountain range. She hears a screech nearby and turns to face a gigantic Nevermore heading straight for her. She engages the Grimm, and after a short battle causes it to crash into the rocky ground below. The Nevermore survives the fall, however, and Maria resorts to using her Silver Eyes to end the battle. This petrifies the Grimm, which soon crumbles.

As Maria reclaims her weapons, she finds herself targeted by Tock and her henchmen, the Faunus claiming she has only 60 seconds left to live. The Grimm Reaper engages her adversaries, taking two down before Tock breaks her Aura. Maria then merges her kamas into one larger weapon, taking down the last henchman before focusing on Tock. The Faunus manages to bite through the wooden shaft of her scythe, breaks her mask with a headbutt and slashes out Maria's eyes with a single strike of her sword.

Blinded and screaming in agony, Maria fires her weapon at Tock until she runs out of bullets. She then hurls it toward Tock, who nimbly evades it. As Tock prepares to land the killing blow, Maria finds her second kama and uses it to summon the first toward her. The Faunus is stabbed in the back by the weapon, and Maria uses her second kama to end her enemy's life. She later undergoes surgery to replace her eyes with prosthetic ones. Afraid of being targeted again, Maria goes into hiding, eventually leading the whole world to believe that the Grimm Reaper was dead.

Heading for Argus
Maria is seen aboard the train that the heroes take on their journey to Atlas. When they decide to keep passengers safe in the front cars and use the rear ones to fight Grimm, Maria stays on the rear cars unlike everyone else. As a result, she is present when the rear cars crash, and she greets everyone.

Maria then rebukes Yang Xiao Long for calling her "a defenseless old lady", but later concedes her point. She remains silent as the heroes confront Ozpin about his lies, and she bears witness to Ruby Rose summoning Jinn, the being of the Relic of Knowledge. She stares in disbelief as Ruby asks Jinn what Ozpin is hiding from the group.

After Jinn finishes her tale, tensions in the group rise, even more so when Ozpin seals himself in Oscar Pine's mind. At that point, Maria steps up to give the disheartened group direction, shutting down Yang's protests in order to get them moving. Later, Maria rides on Bumblebee while it is pushed by Yang as the heroes find Brunswick Farms and enter to take shelter from the snowstorm.

Nightmare of Brunswick Farms
After Qrow breaks down the front door of the main house, Maria shouts at the group to close it before everyone searches out the house to find ways to warm themselves. Tension rises for the group when Weiss and Yang find a pair of decomposed corpses in bed in the master bedroom. While Maria and the students gather around the fire in the living room, they learn from Qrow that there are more corpses in beds in the other houses, and they have no other choice but to spend the night at the manor until the snowstorm stops. As the others search for food and transport, Maria takes a book off of the shelf, reasoning that she will find a story for bedtime.

Maria reads more of the books with numbers on them and discovers that they are the diaries of Bartleby, the head of Brunswick Farms. She learns that he and other families founded the estate to try and live outside the Kingdom, and it worked for a while until many hardships, which included the Grimm, slowed down crop production and made life harder. This makes Maria pity Bartleby as he seemed like an ingenious man. She continues to read the farmer's diary until she falls asleep on the sofa.

The next morning, the group is about to leave when Qrow's Semblance flattens one of the tires of the flatbed, causing Maria to comment that they are "beacons for back luck". After Ruby accidentally drops the Relic into the well, Maria continues to read Bartleby's diary as Team RWBY goes after the lamp. She is later horrified when she finds an entry detailing the Apathy. Maria jumps down the well as Team RWBY come across the Grimm. They find a cellar with an exit, but it is locked from the outside and the Apathy close in on them, although everyone collapses from the Apathy's effects, Maria is puzzled when Ruby somehow pushes back the Grimm long enough to save Blake. When the Apathy attack again, Maria crawls over to Ruby and learns that her eyes are silver. She then instructs Ruby to think about the people she cares for and tells the girl that life is beautiful and precious and that it must be protected. This prompts Ruby to unleash her powers once again with more control, and Ruby destroys all of the Apathy within the vicinity, leaving Maria in awe at the extent of Ruby's powers. They then escape from the cellar and find Qrow passed out at the bar, and they quickly escape from the farm estate.

On the road, Maria reveals what she learned from Bartleby's diary - about the Apathy and the farmer's attempt to cut costs on Huntsman by using this type of Grimm. She later laments not being able to see that the Grimm were responsible for the deaths of the farm estate residents. When Ruby asks her about her knowledge of the Grimm and how she guided the girl in using her powers, Maria answers that she once had silver eyes.

A Brief Respite
After a flashback to her final fight as the Grimm Reaper, present-day Maria states her deep regret over losing not only her eyes but the will to fight. She refuses to be appeased by Qrow and Blake and states that some of them are already stronger than her, looking at Yang as she does. Maria laments that she was unable to do as much as she could for the world, but she is then asked by Ruby to train her how to use her silver eyes. Suddenly they hear an incoming call from Ruby's Scroll, and later find that they have finally arrived in Argus.

Maria and the others are reunited with Team JNPR, who take them on a tour of the city, briefly relaying its history to them. They are soon shown to the house of Jaune Arc's older sister Saphron Cotta-Arc, and Maria enjoys a freshly made meal along with everyone else.

The next day Maria along with Ozpin's faction visit the Atlesian military base in Argus. The guards initially refuse the group access but are convinced to bring the base commander, Caroline Cordovin, to meet with them. Maria reveals that she and Cordovin have a past history, a mostly negative one.

Returning to the Cotta-Arc house, Maria visits the garden in the back while Team RWBY reveal Ozpin and Salem's pasts to Jaune, Ren and Nora. Ruby finds Maria sitting at the backyard, who had wanted to get away from the yelling, and they discuss the abilities and history of the Silver-Eyed Warriors. The elder also reveals that her Semblance of "Preflexes" and advises the young girl to create a state of mind that she can tap into to call upon her Silver Eye powers to protect Humanity. When Ruby is confused as to how her powers affected Cinder Fall, Maria ponders if there was something the girl did not see.

After Oscar's disappearance, Maria joins the search for the farm boy but later returns to the house with Team RWBY at night with no success. They find Qrow completely drunk on the front stairs as they are joined by the others. Everyone is later shocked when they find Oscar back at the house cooking dinner for them. As she holds onto Adrian Cotta-Arc for Terra Cotta-Arc, Maria listens to Jaune as he suggests that they try to steal a military airship to get to Atlas. She then observes as Qrow quickly rejects the idea, and watches as Ruby stands up to her uncle and declares that the group should do things their way. Maria then chuckles at Qrow and comments that he did not give his niece the credit she deserves.

The Airship Heist
For her part of Jaune's plan to steal an airship, Maria hides inside of Weiss' luggage. She pilots the airship after Weiss disposes of the two Altas bodyguards. However, when the military base contacts them over the radio, Maria realizes the plan has gone awry. She tries compensating by pretending to be an Atlesian pilot, but her elderly voice gives her away. Then, when Cordovin demands she return her airship, Maria mocks her by chewing cashews into the radio. Maria is later shocked as Cordovin unleashes the Colossus and open fires on the airship, calling it a "warning shot". Realizing that Cordovin has mentally lost control, Maria flies towards the rest of the group at the cliffside.

After Weiss disembarks on to the cliffside to protect the group, they then decide to fight Cordovin by utilizing their size and numbers in order to distract Cordovin and find a weakness in the Colossus. Maria picks up Oscar to help him find a weak spot from the air. Although the group successfully disables the mech’s shield generator, Cordovin is still able to get the upper hand and defeat most of the group. Upon seeing Ruby in danger, Maria fires a missile at Cordovin, only for it to be caught and thrown back at the ship. She then listens to Oscar as he points out that the mech’s missiles pop out of the cannon, meaning that one well-placed shot can decimate the missiles while they’re still in the launcher. With Ruby as their best shot of completing the task, Maria picks her up so that she can get up close at a good range and tricks Cordovin into exposing the missiles. But the plan fails when the operative notices Ruby and draws the missiles back in and hits the ship with a lightning blast. The attack electrocutes the ship and Maria’s eyes, causing her to go blind and prompting Oscar to take over. They crash land into the trees, and although the ship is still intact, Maria’s eyes are still malfunctioning. This makes her miss Ruby’s victory over Cordovin when she destroys the cannon from the inside. After her eyes are fixed, Maria tells everyone to get on board so they can make a run from the military. But the group is shocked when they hear that a Leviathan is approaching the city.

Canon

 * Maria Calavera vs. Nevermore (Won)
 * Maria Calavera vs. Tock and Assassins (Won)
 * Ruby's Party vs. Cordovin (Won)

Canon

 * Airship Heist

Etymology

 * Maria is a Latin name, the meaning of which is highly debated. A possible translation comes from the Hebrew name, Miryam, which means God's Chosen One. Maria is Latin for the name Mary, mother of Jesus who was chosen by God to give birth to his child in Christianity.
 * It gives the Marian blue color, which is mostly worn by Mary in paintings.
 * One possible interpretation of the name is "sea of bitterness", which could allude to her feelings after being blinded and retiring from active duty.
 * Calavera is the Spanish word for "skull" and is the name for the decorative skulls made of clay or sugar which are used as part of Día de los Muertos celebrations, which the skull on Maria's weapon is modeled after.
 * Her nickname references the Grim Reaper, the personification of Death. The wordplay also references Maria's previous occupation as a huntress and killing (reaping) Grimm.

Notes & Trivia

 * In fellow Rooster Teeth show, Nomad of Nowhere, Melissa Sternenberg also voiced the Y'dala Elder, another elderly dark-skinned woman, as well as the role of the elderly Mrs. Campwell in Camp Camp. She has jokingly stated that "my previous two old lady roles didn't hurt my [audition] chances".
 * Melissa Sternenberg was pregnant with her daughter while recording most of Maria's lines, and declared that the voice is inspired by Cologne from Ranma 1/2 and Malory Archer from Archer.