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For the anime character, see Negative Blake.
A simple life wouldn’t be my life! My family, my friends, my culture. I belong to them, just as much as they belong to me. To give that all away wouldn’t be simplicity, it would be betrayal.
—Blake Belladonna

Blake Belladonna is a titular protagonist of RWBY. She is a Huntress, having been trained at the now-defunct Beacon Academy. Her weapon of choice is a Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe (VBCS)[4] named Gambol Shroud.

She first appeared in the "Black" Trailer alongside Adam Taurus, her paramour, partner, and mentor[5] in the White Fang, a Faunus terrorist organization. After leaving the organization, Blake enrolled at the now-defunct Beacon Academy, where she became a member of Team RWBY alongside Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee and Yang Xiao Long.

She is also the daughter of Ghira Belladonna, the current chieftain of Menagerie and his wife Kali Belladonna.

In "The Final Word", she was dropped into the void under the Central Location by Cinder Fall, while trying to save Ruby from the same fate, later finding herself in the Ever After. In "Confessions Within Cumulonimbus Clouds", she enters a romantic relationship with Yang.

In "Of Solitude and Self", she and her friends return to Remnant, where they arrive in the Kingdom of Vacuo.

Appearance[]

Blake is a fair-skinned young woman with wavy black hair and amber eyes. Her Faunus trait is a pair of black cat ears on top of her head.

Original Outfit (Volumes 1–3)[]

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During her attendance at Beacon, she wears a black, buttoned vest with coattails and a single silver button on the front. Underneath this is a white, sleeveless, high necked, crop undershirt and white shorts with a zipper on the front of each leg, emblazoned with the YKK logo of the real-life Japanese zipper manufacturer.

She also wears black low-heeled boots and full stockings with a color gradation of black to purple at her ankles. Her emblem is visible on the outside of both thighs just below her shorts in white. On her left arm is a black detached sleeve with a silver cuff around her bicep, and black ribbons are wrapped around both forearms. A small, loose, black scarf is wrapped around her neck, and a gray magnetic backpack is strapped to her back, hidden by her hair. She often keeps her weapon attached to the magnetic backpack when she is not using it.

A black ribbon is tied with a large bow on the top of her head, with her cat ears hidden inside the loops. She wears purple eye shadow in cats eye style.

Pajamas[]

During her attendance at Beacon, Blake's pajamas are a black, long-sleeved, Yukata style shirt with white edging over a purple undershirt and a matching skirt. A black obi is wrapped around her waist and tied with a black and white string. While at Beacon, she wears her bow while sleeping.

Alternate Outfit (Intruder)[]

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Alternate Outfit "Intruder"

During the events of "A Minor Hiccup" and "Painting the Town...", Blake wears an alternate outfit code named "Intruder".[6]

This outfit consists of a white, v-neck, zip-up crop shirt with a black hem and three-quarter sleeves. Her emblem is printed in off-white on the left side of the shirt. She wears black pants that have a vertical gray stripe on the outer side of each leg and a black belt.

Attached to the rear of the belt is a black piece of fabric that covers her from hip to hip. Underneath this is a longer, translucent, purple piece of fabric. She also wears black high-heel boots with two straps and buckles and purple under roles, reaching to mid-calf. She retains the black ribbons on her forearms and her black bow.

Dance[]

During the Beacon Dance, Blake wears a short, purple, asymmetrical, halter neck dress that is split up the right side and has a black collar. Translucent black mesh covers her shoulders, decolletage and back, and decorative black swirls cover the left side of the dress and continue up the left strap. The outfit is completed with black pumps, and she wears a teal bow on her head as opposed to her usual black one.

Beacon Uniform[]

During her attendance at Beacon, Blake wears the same brown shoes, red tartan skirt, white blouse with maroon trim and thin red bow, a brown vest with gold buttons and a maroon blazer with gold trim as every other girl attending Beacon Academy, alongside knee-high black socks.

Mistral Outfit (Volumes 4-7)[]

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After the timeskip following the Fall of Beacon, her design features a long white tailcoat with dark violet inner lining and a sleeveless black crop top, as well as a belt attached from behind. The crop top has rectangular and diamond-shaped cutouts around the neckline, which have purple outlines beginning in Volume 6. Additionally, she wears a white belt over black skintight leather pants. After the confrontation with Adam in "Heroes and Monsters", Blake has been left with an X-shaped scar just above her left hip.

Across her torso is a diagonal strap that has a smaller magnetic clip on the back, which is used to sheathe Gambol Shroud. She wears thigh-high black heeled boots with gold-colored edging around the top. The left boot has a belt wrapped twice around the thigh. Each boot bears her Belladonna emblem in white on the outer side of the thigh, and a white pouch is attached to the back of her belt.

Blake V6-7

In "Of Runaways and Stowaways", Blake removes her bow and throws it into the ocean. Later, in "The Lady in the Shoe", Adam slashes her tailcoat off her.

From Volume 4 onward, Blake's cat ears have a tendency to fold down or otherwise move in sync with her emotional state, much like the ears of an actual cat.

Atlas Outfit (Volume 7-Current)[]

V9 Opening 00007

After arriving in Atlas and meeting with James Ironwood, Blake cuts her hair to a shoulder-length bob. She changes her attire to a purple sleeveless catsuit with attached boots that has light purple soles and trim. The catsuit has a high neck with a single short silver zipper alongside matching zippers that run from her thighs to her ankles on the front of the legs. A pair of knee pads, matching color to the catsuit with silver studs on them are attached to the knees of the catsuit.

Her long, white tailcoat has desaturated purple detailing on the chest, sleeves, sides and collar alongside a dark purple detailing on the back. It has a narrow belt around the collar and a wide white belt loosely secured around her waist through the coat's belt loops. The belt has two pouches attached to the back. The coattails end in a point and the inside lining is vivid purple. The front zipper of the coat is upside down and extends to the very bottom of the coat, and there are additional zippers along the lower half of the sleeves with a single purple line running between the zipper and her shoulders. Around each wrist is a dark purple belted wristband and has a desaturated purple magnetic backpack on her back.

Lucid Dream Outfit (Ice Queendom)[]

Dream Blake

Dream Blake Belladonna.

For Blake, she wears dark purple fur trimmed ankle boots, with the heels being a lavender color alongside dark purple thigh length stockings that gradate to purple. As well as a pair of white shorts with black zig-zagged stitching on the fronts she wears a purple leather leotard, partially unzipped with exposed gray section around the bust. Under the bust is a white belt wrapping around two coattails with white lining, a small cat paw print appears on the left coattail around the breast area. Instead of her hands, she has dark purple humanoid/Grimm-like paws with claws, with tufts of fur around her wrists, alongside some ribbon, and dark paw pad. She also sports a large white choker around her neck. On her head, there is only one piece of ribbon covering one of her ears, with the other one being out in the open. And unlike herself in the real world, she has a black cat tail.

Earth Outfit[]

Earth Blake

After arriving on Earth, Blake's Faunus ears are gone and wears a black mask. Her outfit is basically a combination of her Beacon and Mistral attires and Ilia's White Fang uniform. She wears a black sleeveless crop top with gold zipper and a hood with purple insides to match her long gloves with gold knuckles, pants, and black calf-high, wedged boots that are folded over with a gold zipper on the side. Over it, she wears white belt straps with gold and dark grey buckles that connect to her outfit except on her gloves and hold her white pockets.

Gallery[]

Personality[]

All my life, I fought for what I thought was right. I had a partner named Adam. More of a mentor, actually. He always assured me that what we were doing would make the world a better place but, of course, his idea of a perfect future turned out to be not perfect for everyone. I joined the Academy because I knew Huntsmen and Huntresses were regarded as the noblest warriors in the world, always fighting for good, but I never really thought past that. When I leave the Academy, what will I—? How can I undo so many years of hate?
—Blake Belladonna.

Blake is described by her voice actress Arryn Zech as being "mellow". She displays a cool, reserved and serious personality most of the time but does not lack a humorous side, which is usually in the form of dry wit and sarcasm. Blake is a righteous person, respecting other people's lives regardless of whether they are Faunus or not. She strongly despises those who judge and discriminate based on racial prejudice. Blake is outspoken, going so far as to indirectly insult the Schnee Dust Company in front of its heiress and defend Faunus of any kind. Despite her generally quiet demeanor, she can be surprisingly charismatic, as when she rallied the Faunus to defend Mistral against the White Fang after the attack on her home.

Blake is shown to be an introvert. Although she reads books to distance herself from the discussion at hand, as the series continues, she is shown to be more facetious and friendly. Blake appears most conversant when discussing the history and plight of her people.

As a Faunus, Blake has faced discrimination in the past and wears a bow when around Humans in order to be treated for her character and not her species. However, despite having no hate for Humans, she has seen how the real world works and wonders how she can undo so many years of hate and pain. After the Fall of Beacon, Blake discards her bow and does not cover her ears again, even around the presence of Humans, showing that she is no longer afraid to be seen as a Faunus.

Blake's past negatively influenced her personality, leading to moodiness, stubbornness, sleep deprivation and trust issues at times. She also has self-loathing issues, viewing herself as a criminal hiding in plain sight because of her past with the White Fang until her teammates convinced her that they still trusted and cared for her despite her being a Faunus and a former member of the White Fang. She also viewed herself as a coward who ran from her problems, as her Semblance was a prospect of her tendency to avoid conflict. She had even felt unworthy of her parents' love after leaving them behind for the White Fang's cause. However, her strong sense of righteousness led her to strongly disagree with the White Fang's increasing level of violence and hatred towards Humans, especially Adam's. It was thanks to her realization of seeing how spiteful and uncaring Adam was for Human lives she not only left the group but also decided to fight back after discovering Adam was planning to overthrow Sienna Khan and gain total control over the White Fang.

Thanks to her parents' unconditional love and Sun Wukong's support of her, Blake began to grow out of her self-loathing issues and mistrust for others, with Sun persuading her to let her friends help her as much as she believes she is helping them. She uses this in turn to persuade Ilia Amitola to leave the White Fang and find the courage to confront Adam with others' help and to reunite with her teammates at Haven. After she and Yang kill Adam for good, she vows to keep her promise by never running again, no longer viewing herself as a coward.

During her time at Beacon she learns to open up more and trust her teammates, and became more fun loving while hanging out with her friends, but when the Battle of Beacon happened, and Adam vowing to destroy everything she loved, she was regressed to loneliness and isolation, until Sun's persistence helps straighten out her understanding of the value and importance of having friends. After saving Haven Academy, reconciling with her teammates, and defeated Adam for good, she starts to relearn how to relax and have fun, such as going clubbing with Yang and Team FNKI.

Due to her time in the White Fang, Blake holds a bias against Atlas and its military as a whole. This is most noticeable regarding her double standard in keeping secrets. In "A New Approach", she goes along with Ruby's decision to lie to James Ironwood and keep Ozpin's disappearance, how many questions left in the Relic of Knowledge, and Salem's immortality a secret. Yet in "Worst Case Scenario", she and Yang have no trouble spilling information on the Amity Communications Tower to Robyn Hill despite Ironwood's insistence on keeping it secret, due to the former sympathizing with her nature as a vigilante. These acts are one of the reasons why Ironwood eventually loses trust in them.

Her Faunus traits also seem to give her other aspects of a cat, such as climbing up to Ruby's bed to stay away from Ruby and Yang's pet dog, Zwei. Another time, she is distracted by and instinctively decides to follow a laser pointer light to a waiting Yang in "Burning the Candle". She also has a great love for tuna, as shown in "Round One" where she drools over a bowl of noodles topped with tuna.

In “A Cat Most Curious“, when Blake’s past self offers Blake an opportunity of changing her form to either a human or a cat in order to fit in and not being discriminated, Blake declines her offer as she is done hiding for who she is and she is proud to be a Faunus. It shows on much Blake has changed and accept her status as a Faunus as she has many people who treated her equally.

Powers and Abilities[]

Blake shows high agility, speed, and endurance, as shown when fighting multiple enemies yet maintaining motion and energy without fatigue. She also exhibits a high level of skill when handling Gambol Shroud. She can slash away at opponents with startling speed and deflect incoming machine-gun fire using her blade.

Blake also possesses remarkable reflexes, as she is able to dodge a nearly point-blank strike from Adam by using her Semblance. She is also capable of jumping large distances, leaping from building to building and even on moving cars, as seen in "Painting the Town...". Her fighting style takes advantage of her agility and reflexes, evading opponents' strikes until she is in the best position for a counter-blow.

As a Faunus, Blake possesses the ability of night vision, granting her the ability to see proficiently in the dark, as is shown after shooting out the power during the White Fang Faction Meeting, using the dark as a means for her and Sun to escape from Roman Torchwick and the White Fang.

Blake has somewhat enhanced hearing as well, having more than one set of ears. During her battle with Adam in "The Lady in the Shoe", she hears Yang's approach before Adam does, as indicated by her twitching cat ears.

She displayed decent control of Aura on two different occasion offtensively, releasing crescent slashes from Gambol Shroud in "Painting the Town...", cutting through multiple missiles released by the Atlesian Paladin-290 Prototype and "No Brakes" on the underground Black Cargo Train.

Weapon[]

Main article: Gambol Shroud
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Blake dual-wielding the sword and sheath

Blake's weapon of choice is Gambol Shroud, a sword that has three forms. When sheathed, the weapon is able to slice opponents in two with its cleaver-like cover. However, when unsheathed, Blake is able to use both a sword and sheath in tandem against her opponents. It can also transform into a gun. Gambol Shroud was damaged in combat against Adam in "The Lady in the Shoe"; the blade being cut horizontally in half by Wilt, and later received an upgrade in Atlas. Using the black ribbon that extends off the weapon's grip, Blake can convert Gambol Shroud into a kusarigama, a grappling hook to swing herself or her friends, or ensnare or tangle her opponents. In "The Final Word", Gambol Shroud's ribbon is burned in two by Cinder; it is briefly taken up by Weiss, but is subsequently lost to the Void when the Evacuation Central Location dissolves. She later gets her weapon back after landing in the Ever After.

Semblance[]

Main article: Shadow
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Using her Semblance in mid-air to launch herself toward a Nevermore

Blake's Semblance, Shadow, allows her to create shadow-clones of herself.[7] These clones push her in the direction of her choosing and can be used to trick and disorient opponents.

Blake can use Dust to give her clones additional abilities. Dust allows the clones to copy an element, with her afterimages becoming completely solid or even completely intangible depending on the chosen form of Dust. Fire Dust allows her to create fiery clones that explode on contact, Ice Dust allows her to create solid ice copies of herself (which opponents can get their weapons stuck in), Earth Dust allows her to create a clone of solid stone, and Lightning Dust zips her to another location quickly.

Superpowers[]

Blake Shadow Bending FX Reference 1

Concept art of Blake's shadowbending powers.

In Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes and Huntsmen, Part Two, Blake is transformed into a human after traveling to Earth. She loses her Aura, Semblance, and Faunus instincts, in exchange receiving superpowers akin to Earth's metahumans. Blake's superpowers are called "shadowbending". They enable the control over darkness-like energy, mainly in the form of dark energy blasts. She can also generate constructs out of darkness/shadows, and fly via wing constructs. She loses these powers upon leaving Earth.

Weaknesses[]

Although Blake does not appear to have many physical weaknesses, her Gambol Shroud does in its kusarigama form. If she is using it to grapple and leap around, one can knock it out of its intentional trajectory to make her lose momentum. One can even cut its ribbon and force Blake to fall whilst she is swinging.

Some of her Dust clones through her Semblance can also be used against her, as seen when she was knocked aside by her own Ice Dust clone in a fight against a Cenitaur.

Trivia[]

Allusion[]

Color Naming Rule[]

  • Blake is a variant of "black" from Middle English. Belladonna means "fair lady" or "beautiful woman" in Italian, and it is also the name of a toxic plant commonly known as deadly nightshade. The plant commonly bears poisonous black berries, which lends to Blake's black color theme. It also commonly bears purple bell-shaped flowers, which lends to her Aura color.
    • Blake's name and love of literature may be a coincidental reference to the noted English poet William Blake.

Story[]

  • It was stated by Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross that Blake prefers drinking tea over coffee.[8] In "Destiny", when Weiss suggests the pair get coffee, Blake opts for tea instead. It was also mentioned in the Fan Service Podcast.
  • Blake's Huntress license number is 63600-23412-56709.
  • During RTX 2020 RWBY Panel, Blake's birthday is confirmed to be on January 19th, making her a Capricorn.
  • In the episode "Field Trip", Blake is shown to be uncomfortable around, or even scared of, dogs, most likely because she is a cat Faunus. This aspect is played up for comedy in episodes of RWBY Chibi.
  • Miles Luna wrote the majority of Blake's scenes in Volume 4. When Blake is slapping Sun in "A Much Needed Talk", Miles only intended it to be softer slaps on the shoulder, so he was quite surprised by the end result.[9]
  • Blake could have Cynophobia, or the fear of dogs. While its not too clear in the show itself, Chibi Blake almost definitely suffers from this.

Character&Design[]

  • The Rooster Teeth crew said Blake is one of the hardest characters to write for.[10]
  • When asked about her bow by a fan during the Blake Week AMA, Arryn answered that Blake has a closet full of bows all neatly aligned on the walls.[11]
  • Monty stated during a livestream that Blake's lack of a belly button in her original costume was a glitch with her character model.[citation needed] She does have one in her other costumes, though.
Einlee-v0blake2

Blake concept art with heterochromia iridium.

  • Blake was originally going to have heterochromia iridium, with one of her eyes being yellow and one blue. This trait often appears in cats.
  • On a Galaxy Con Livestream, Arryn says that she's pretty similar to Blake to which Barbara responds, "Arryn also likes the men and the women," implying that just like her voice actor, Blake is bisexual. Barbara follows up with, "I think it's pretty obvious that Blake likes all people."[12] Though since some thought this to be a headcanon from the voice actors, a Reddit AMA with RWBY's co-writer Eddy Rivas answers a question that asked, "...we've learned the sexuality of both Coco and Blake, with Coco being gay and Blake being Bi, [will we] learn about the sexuality of other characters either in the show or books?" Eddy goes onto answer with a simple "yes!" and didn't deny the canonicity of Blake's sexuality.[13]
    • Miles Luna confirmed Blake is bisexual via a Cameo recorded in July 2023.[14]

Media[]

  • Blake is a free playable DLC character in BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle.[15][16]
  • In the fourth episode of gen:LOCK, another animated series produced by Rooster Teeth, one of the main characters, Yasamin Madrani, can be seen dressed as Blake (Volume 4-7) in the Ether.[17]
  • On July 19th, 2019, a limited event collaboration between RWBY and SMITE was announced.[18] Team RWBY is confirmed to appear as voiced skins with Blake as a skin for Amaterasu.[19]
  • Blake Belladonna has appeared in the 144th episode of Death Battle, where she fought Mikasa Ackerman from Attack on Titan. She was able to emerge victorious thanks to her speed, versatile weapon, Aura and Semblance.
  • Blake also appeared in DBX, where she fought Inuyasha from the series of the same name and lost because people voted and it ended 51.6-48.4.
  • On June 29th Blake joins her team, Salem and Qrow as playable skins in Paladins during a crossover with RWBY. She appears as a skin for Saati.

Miscellaneous[]

  • During group fight scenes, the music often switches to dramatic piano scales when the focus shifts solely on Blake, as seen in episodes such as "Players and Pieces", "Best Day Ever", "Painting the Town..." and "Round One". This could be a leitmotif of sorts for Blake.
  • On the first night at Beacon, Blake tells Ruby her book is about a man with two souls. The first line of the right-hand page of the book reads, "He raised the glass to his lips." - a direct quote from Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
  • Blake, alongside Ruby, Nora Valkyrie and Jaune Arc, is one of the characters who owns an object sold in the Rooster Teeth store: her backpack. It is now sold out.
  • It is possible that Blake's Shadow Semblance was inspired by C.T.'s hologram armor enhancement from Red vs. Blue which functioned and was used very similarly to Blake's Semblance.

References[]

Characters
BRIR
RWBY/Justice League
Super Heroes and Huntsmen
Other
Minor Characters
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