Cinder Fall

Cinder is a fair-skinned young woman with bright amber eyes and long, ashen-black hair that covers her left eye and rests over her left shoulder. On her upper back she has a black tattoo of her emblem: a pair of high heel shoes placed sole-to-sole, forming a heart shape inside. Her fingernails are painted dark red. In "Black and White", she wears lipstick and violet eyeshadow.

During her infiltration of the Cross Continental Transmit System Tower, Cinder is shown wearing a black infiltration outfit, which she had previously been seen sewing together in "Extracurricular".[10] The outfit consists of a sleeveless jacket, long gloves, stiletto heel boots, a black glass mask and several straps with containers of powdered Dust lined across her pants. The gloves, boots and pants have black mosaic designs that are infused with Dust that glows bright orange when in use. When needed, Cinder can instantly transform her infiltration attire into a formal black evening gown that has black glass designs on it.

Cinder is ruthless and sadistic, as demonstrated when she delivers a killing blow to a clearly defeated Pyrrha Nikos in "End of the Beginning" and when she throws a spear at a defenseless Weiss Schnee in "The More the Merrier". She is relentlessly driven to gain power and determined to cross any line to obtain it. Cinder demonstrates a cunning that shows in her successful manipulation of events and people throughout the first three volumes. Cinder is also arrogant and egomaniacal and, as such, relishes in dominance and gloating, displaying shameless pleasure in the misery she has caused others. She believes that the power she is after is owed to her, having been promised godlike abilities and the Maiden powers by Salem. She also seems to be ambitious and demanding in the role of a leader, expecting her subordinates to execute exactly as she wishes with what little she gives them. She does not seem to tolerate failure, preferring for her goals to be successful regardless of the situation. Cinder prefers that such problems be solved quickly, is seen to give very direct orders, and keeps her subordinates on a strictly need-to-know basis, sharing a similar leadership style to Salem. However, she does display a cunning streak, as her allegiance revolves around having Neopolitan kill Ruby Rose so Cinder will not be going against Salem's orders to not kill her.

Usually, she maintains a calm and collected demeanor and is willing to take over a fight if necessary. In the rare occurrence in which she is caught off guard, Cinder's monumental temper surfaces, showing her immense shock and outrage. This is most notable when Jaune Arc just barely nicks the edge of her mask during the Battle of Haven resulting in Cinder flying into a childish rage and start to yell and make threats. This explosive response to even the slightest attack on her shows Cinder's intolerance of fear, leading her to react poorly when others see her feel it. Cinder seeks to be feared and therefore detests being made to feel fear by both her enemies and her superiors alike. Additionally, Cinder is stated to be jealous of those with natural talents. When Cinder first obtained the Fall Maiden powers, she saw it similarly to a brand-new toy that made her feel like she was the best and strongest. Because of this, she became addicted to the feeling and stopped considering the strengths she had acquired before that moment. Because of this, she was humiliated from her defeat and injury by Ruby atop Beacon Tower. As shown in Volume 4, she did not display her usual confidence, instead appearing sullen and taking insults from the other members of Salem's Inner Circle without reply due to her inability to speak, thus relying on her subordinates.Even after recovering in Volume 5, her deep desire for vengeance against Ruby clouds her judgement, shown when she negotiates a deal with Raven Branwen to stage an ambush in Haven Academy, despite protest from Arthur Watts. In the end, this results in Raven betraying Cinder, leaving her for dead and taking the Relic of Knowledge. Because of her actions, Salem was forced to change her plans, focusing on attacking Atlas instead of Vacuo due to the Lamp being taken there.

Cinder's thirst and desperation for power stems from a life of powerlessness and having nothing. This desperation has led to a fear of failure and a hatred towards the elite class, who have held power from others forever. She apparently detests being called out on her actions, as shown when Raven cites Cinder's choice to take the arm of a Grimm. Cinder retorts angrily, showing she sees herself as being beyond judgment or the moral codes of others. She is incapable of accepting any sort of criticism from others. However, in "Taking Control", she is visibly horrified watching as Tyrian Callows maniacally kill a Beowolf in grief of having displeased Salem, showing that even she has limits with absolute violence. It is implied that Cinder only enjoys the psychological torture she inflicts and dislikes the bloodier brutality of her associates. Later, the full extent of Cinder's desperation for power is shown in her reaction of again being denied the power of a Maiden, as seen in "The Enemy of Trust". During her battle with Penny Polendina and Winter Schnee and upon being overpowered by Fria, her anger and frustration reached its boiling point as she began viciously lashing out at Winter, injuring her badly and nearly killing her for deterring Cinder's quest for power. Although Watts' angry rant regarding her arrogance and short-sightedness hinted at Cinder having a change of heart, in reality she does not change at all, merely doubling down on said qualities.[18] In "Worthy", she murders tons of civilians in the central location during the evacuation to Vacuo, and in "The Final Word", betrays and murders her allies without a second thought such as pushing Neo into the void and trapping Watts in the Atlas Command Center before setting it on fire to kill him.

Based on her upbringing shown in "Midnight", Cinder's current personality and desperation for power stems from the abuse she suffered as a child. She faced constant bullying, starvation and abuse from the other children from the home she was raised in, and was later abused even further after being adopted by her step-family, who treated her as nothing more than a servant and abused her regularly. Despite no longer being under them, Cinder still retains several psychological scars from their abuse. This is seen in Cinder's behavior, where she had apparently unconsciously adopted the cruel traits of her past abusers into her own personality. Though the electrocution she got from the necklace also had an effect on her, making Cinder disdainful of physical torture. Due to her abusive childhood, Cinder has shown to possess a docile, fearful and submissive side to her personality when dealing with someone who is superior to her. This side of her was most pronounced in her childhood and later after returning to Salem's side after redeeming herself of her past failures. Despite this, Cinder's lust for power ultimately caused her to disobey Salem's order regardless of the consequences when she decided to go to Amity Communications Tower. In "Amity", Cinder is shown to be a bit of a hypocrite, claiming to Penny that she serves no one, yet still serves Salem despite not always following her orders, psychologically projecting herself onto Penny. During their fight, Cinder was shown at her most manic and reckless nature, which would be one of the last times she went way over her head thinking she could achieve her goals through brute strength alone.

As seen during her childhood, Cinder had a more positive and vulnerable side to her personality. This is was partially due to the positive influence of her mentor Rhodes, who attempted to guide Cinder to a better path in life as a Huntress. This is seen when, after being talked down by Rhodes about her wanting revenge on her step-family, Cinder backed down from wishing to hurt them and expressed her true desire of simply wanting to be free and be strong enough to look after herself without relying on them any longer. With Rhodes' influence, Cinder instead chose to focus on becoming a Huntress and becoming old enough to leave. This would later not come to pass after she kills her step-family due to them finally taking their abuse too far. This showed that Cinder initially was hesitant at the prospect of killing and that she was only resorting to it due to seeing it as her only way out, as was seen after Cinder had killed her step-family and was noticeably repulsed by her own actions and did not actively enjoy or take pleasure in having taken their lives. Cinder was also shown to have developed a genuine friendship with Rhodes, most likely due to his being the first person in her life to have treated her with kindness. She later felt deeply betrayed after Rhodes made his stance clear that he would take her in for killing her step-family, causing her to enter into a rage for him having betrayed her trust. Later after Cinder successfully killed him, she would shed a single tear for her mentor.

Cinder is a highly skilled combatant in both unarmed combat and swordsmanship, being able to out-duel both Winter Schnee and Penny Polendina simultaneously in their battle, and later fend off the entirety of Team RWBY with casual ease in "Worthy". She is also a capable markswoman, launching three arrows at once with great accuracy and pragmatically exploiting any advantage whenever possible, such as launching an arrow in Amber's back just as the latter was about to kill Emerald. Cinder has shown to be quite stealthy as well, having snuck around a guard at Beacon Academy to easily knock him out and escaping Ruby when the latter encounters her on her mission and fights her. She is also quite adept at piloting, able to fly a Bullhead during one of Glynda's attacks. Cinder is adept at Aura-based blocking techniques and easily capable of blocking bullets from Crescent Rose. She can make extensive use of raw Dust without difficulty. Her primary technique at the time of her battle with Ruby in "Ruby Rose" was a highly forceful blast of fiery projectiles. It was later revealed by the presence of her tattoo that Cinder had obtained half of the Fall Maiden's power prior to this confrontation, although the Maidens were not added as a story element until after Volume 2 and thus were not a canon aspect of the show at the time. Cinder is capable of weaving Dust into her clothes, as shown in "Extracurricular".​​​​ Additionally, the arrows used when firing Midnight are made using Dust.

Cinder's physical strength is shown being well above average in "End of the Beginning" and "The Enemy of Trust", where she knocks Pyrrha away by jabbing her in the stomach with her elbow and physically overpowering both Penny and Winter with ease. In "Midnight", Cinder showcased that even as a young teenager, she was already physically strong enough to carry a fully grown woman and lift her off her feet by her throat using only one hand and break her neck by simply squeezing her throat and tightening her grip.

As shown in "Midnight", she has a high pain tolerance, most likely due to her years in the Glass Unicorn.

During the first three volumes, Cinder's weapons of choice were Midnight. She showcased immense swordsmanship skill in using a dual bladed fighting style and was shown to be skilled enough to overpower the previous Fall Maiden, Amber, and fight off Ruby, a prodigy scythe wielder, with ease. Midnight can combine together at the bottoms of the swords' hilts to form into a bow, allowing Cinder to make long range attacks by firing arrows at her target. Later after becoming the Fall Maiden, Cinder chose to no longer use Midnight. Currently, Cinder is able to use her Maiden powers to conjure Magical Weapons at will. Usually, she prefers using blades, and has shown to wield a variety of differently shaped ones with ease. However, she has also conjured bows, arrows and spears as well. Cinder has also shown some skill in using polearm weapons, with her having used at least two different spears as projectiles. As seen with her arrows and blades, Cinder can make her projectile weapons explode at will, with them being shown to possess considerable power in order to bombard her targets. As shown in "Midnight", Cinder's sword skills were taught to her by Rhodes. Because of this, her fighting style greatly resembles his own. Cinder's Semblance, Scorching Caress, allows her to super-heat objects and manipulate their shape. She can use it to generate explosions by super-heating the ground, as well as turn dirt and dust into glass. The most notable instance of Cinder's Semblance is during her fight with Pyrrha Nikos, during which she disintegrates her opponent with Scorching Caress.

Her main usage of it in battle is both launching projectiles created by superheating dirt, as seen during her battle against Amber, as well as manipulating her weapon Midnight which is formed through Dust. She can also produce heat from any part of her skin, such as when she burnt Penny using her thighs.

It is revealed in "Midnight" that Cinder's Semblance was awakened due to the abuse from her step-family.

In order to acquire the Fall Maiden powers, Cinder used a special glove to steal it from Amber. However, she only took half of it when the process was interrupted, which she described as an emptiness. Upon obtaining the remaining portion in "Heroes and Monsters", Cinder gained the ability to use fire-based attacks without the need of Dust or her Semblance. Cinder later displayed power over other elements she has not used before, such as conjuring a small blast of ice to freeze Raven Branwen solid and the power of wind to levitate herself and fly at high speeds. Furthermore, Cinder also used the power of earth to create a giant flaming molten rock sword out of thin air. Her skill over fire allows her to conjure her glass based weapons without the need of Dust or her Semblance. As the Fall Maiden, she is the only one that can access the chamber of the Relic of Choice, although has yet to do so.